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DEBATERS'  HANDBOOK  SERIES 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


DEBATERS' 
HANDBOOK  SERIES 


Direct  Primaries 

Commission  Plan  of  Municipal  Govern- 
ment 

Capital  Punishment 

Initiative  and  Referendum 

Election  of  United  States  Senators 

Income  Tax 

Central  Bank  of  the  United  States 

Woman  Suffrage 

Enlargement  of  the  United  States  Navy 
(3d  ed.  rev.  and  enl.) 

Other  volumes  in  preparation 


Each  volumef  one  dollar  net 


Debaters^    Handbook   Series 


SELECTED  ARTICLES 


ON 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


COMPILED  BY 
EDITH   M.   PHELPS 


MINNEAPOLIS 
THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 

1910 


EXPLANATORY  NOTE 

Although  Woman  Suffrage  has  been  discussed  for  many 
years,  interest  in  the  subject  has  by  no  means  diminished.  It  is 
in  response  to  a  very  Hvely  demand  for  material  and  especially 
for  a  Debaters'  Handbook  on  the  subject  that  the  present  vol- 
ume has  been  compiled.  This  book  is  similar  to  the  other  vol- 
umes of  the -series,  and  contains  a  bibliography  and  reprints  of 
the  best  available  material  both  in  favor  of  and  opposed  to  the 
extension  of  the  suffrage. 

For  the  sake  of  convenience,  the  reprints  have  been  grouped 
under  three  main  headings :  General  Discussion,  Affirmative,  and 
Negative  Discussion.  Owing  to  the  vast  amount  of  literature 
on  this  subject,  a  complete  bibliography  would  be  an  impossibil- 
ity and  has  not  been  attempted.  It  is  believed,  however,  that 
this  bibliography  will  be  found  adequate  for  the  needs  of  the 
average  reader  or  debater.  While  a  much  larger  number  of 
references  were  examined  than  appear  here,  only  those  have 
been  selected  that  would  be  valuable  and  at  the  same  time 
easily  accessible  to  the  average  library  or  individual. 


210090 


CONTENTS 


Bibliography 

General  References   i 

Affirmative    References    5 

Negative  References  11 

General  Discussion 

Raine,  William  MacLeod.     Woman  Suffrage  in  Colorado.. 

Chautaiiquan       17 

Greene,  Mary  A.     Results  of  the  Woman  Suffrage  Move- 
ment  Forum      23 

Steunenberg,  Frank.     Woman  Suffrage  in  Idaho 

Harper's  Bazar      35 

Foxcroft,  Frank.    Check  to  Woman  Suffrage  in  the  United 

States Nineteenth   Century      39 

Anthony,  Susan  B.    Woman's  Half-Century  of  Evolution. . 

North  American  Review      43 

Henry,  Alice.    Australian  Woman  and  the  Ballot 

North  American  Review      51 

Good  Women  a  Majority North  American  Review      59 

Harper,    Ida    Husted.      Woman    Suffrage    throughout    the 

World North  American  Review      61 

Lewis,    Lawrence.      How    Woman's     Suffrage    Works    in 

Colorado Outlook      'j^ 

Sweden  Gives  Women   Parliamentary  Franchise. .  .Outlook      90 

Kennaday,  Paul.     Where  the  Women  Vote Outlook      90 

Vote  of  Massachusetts  on  Municipal  Suffrage  for  Women 

at  the  State  Election,  November  5,  1895 loi 

Harper,  Ida  Husted.     Present  Status  of  Woman  Suffrage. . 

World   To-Day     102 

Harper,  Ida  Husted.     Electing  Women  to  Parliament 

World   To-Day    no 

What  Woman  Suffrage   Does World's  Work     115 


viii  CONTENTS 

Affirmative  Discussion 

Hughes,  James  L.     Last  Protest  against  Woman's  Enfran- 
chisement   Arena     1 19 

Lee,  Margaret  Noble.     Bishop  Doane  and  Woman  Suffrage 

Arena     134 

Chapman,  Charles  H.  Right  of  Woman  to  the  Ballot.  .Arena     144 

Parsons,   Frank.     Shall   Our   Mothers,   Wives   and   Sisters 

Be  Our  Equals  or  Our  Subjects ? Arena     155 

/  Hoar,   George   F.   Right  and   Expediency   of   Woman   Suf- 
frage  Century     160 

/Russell,  Bertrand.    Liberalism  and  Woman's  Suffrage 

Contemporary   Review     162 

Positive  Arguments  for  Woman  Suffrage.  .Harper's  Weekly     168 

Addams,  Jane.    Why  Women  Should  Vote 

Ladies'    Home    Journal     173 

/>Ramsey,  Annie  R.    Woman  Suffrage  in  America 

Lippincott's     183 

Gibbon,  John.    Why  Women  Should  Have  the  Ballot 

North  American  Review     188 

Sutherland,  Rosamond  Lee.     Appeal  of  Politics  to  Women 

North  American  Review     195 

Kelly,    Florence.      Child    Labor    and    Woman    Suffrage.... 

Outlook     196 

Addams,  Jane.     Women  Who  Know  That  They  Need  the 

Ballot i Public     197 

.   Addams,  Jane.    Working  Woman  and  the  Ballot 

Woman's   Home   Companion     198 

Negative  Discussion 

Frothingham,  O.  B.  Real  Case  of  the  Remonstrants  against 

Woman  Suffrage : Arena    205 

I  Clark,  Charles  Worcester.    Woman  Suffrage  Pro  and  Con 

Atlantic   Monthly    209 

Stimson,  Henry  A.     Is  Woman's  Suffrage  an  Enlightened 

and  Justifiable  Policy  for  the  State?. .  .Bibliotheca  Sacra    213 
f  Buckley,  J.   M.     Wrongs   and   Perils   of   Woman    Suffrage 

Century    220 

Sedgwick,  Mrs.  Mary  K.     Scientific  Aspects  of  the  Woman 

Suffrage  Question Gunton's  Magazine    243 


CONTENTS  ix 

Leonard,  Priscilla.    Working- Woman  and  Anti-Suffrage. .. . 

Harper's    Bazar    246 

V  Ward,  Mary  Augusta.    Why  I  Do  Not  Believe  in  Woman 

Suffrage   Ladies'  Home  Journal    251 

Ward,  Mary  Augusta.     Women's  Anti-Suffrage  Movement 

Nineteenth  Century    256 

]^  Doane,  William  Croswell.    Why  Women  Do  Not  Want  the 

Ballot North  American  Review    26s 

Jones,  Mrs.  Gilbert  E.     Impediments  to  Woman  Suffrage.. 

North    American    Review    272 

Dicey,  Albert  Venn.     Woman   Suffrage.  .Quarterly  Review    281 


SELECTED  ARTICLES  ON 
WOMAN  SUFFRAGE 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


A    star    (*)    preceding    a    reference    indicates    that    the    entire 
article  or  a  part  of  it  has  been  reprinted  in  this  volume. 


General  References 

Books,  Pamphlets  and  Documents 

Bayles,  G.  J.    Woman  and  the  Law. 

Bliss,  William  D.  P.,  ed.  New  Encyclopedia  of  Social  Reform. 

1908.    pp.    1295-1303. 
Bryce,  James.    American  Commonwealth.  3d  ed.  Vol.  II.  Chap. 

XCIII.     Commonwealth   Publishing  Co.,   New  York,   1908. 
Congressional  Record.  18:  987-1002.  Ja.  25,  '87.  Woman  Suffrage. 
Lecky,  William  Edward  Hartpole.  Democracy  and  Liberty.  Vol. 

II.  pp.  504-59.  Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  New  York,   1896. 
New  American  Supplement  to  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica.  Vol. 

V.  p.  3181. 
New  International  Encyclopedia.   Woman's   Suffrage. 
New  York  Constitutional  Convention.  Debates  on  Woman  Suf- 
frage. 1894. 
Ostrogorski,  M.  The  Rights  of  Women. 
Reeves,   William   Pember.   State   Experiments   in   Australia   and 

New  Zealand.   Chap.   III.   E.   P.   Dutton  &   Co.,   New  York, 

1903. 


2  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Ringwalt,  Ralph  Curtis.  Briefs  on  Public  Questions,  pp.  8-16. 
Longmans,  Green,  and   Co.,  New  York,   1908. 

Contains  a  bibliogaphy  and  brief  for  both  affirmative  and 
negative. 

Stanton,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Cady.  Eighty  Years  and  More.  T. 
Fisher  Unvi^in,  London,  1898. 

Stanton,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Cady,  and  Others.  History  of  Woman 
Suffrage.  4  Vols.  National  American  Woman  SutYrage,  War- 
ren, Ohio,  1904. 

Sumner,  Helen  L.  Equal  Suffrage :  The  Results  of  an  Investiga- 
tion in  Colorado  Made  for  the  Collegiate  Equal  Suffrage 
League  of  New  York  State.  Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York, 
1909. 

This  is  'an  impartial  survey  of  the  results  of  woman  suffrage 
in  Colorado,  and  will  be  helpful  to  both  affirmative  and  nega- 
tive   sides. 

United   States.  47th   Congress,    ist   Session.    Senate   Report  686. 

Reports  on  Woman   Suffrage. 
United   States.  48th   Congress,   ist   Session.    Senate   Report   399. 

Report  of  the  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage. 
United  States.  48th   Congress,   ist   Session.   House   Report   1330. 

Extending  the  Right  of  Suffrage  to  Women. 
United   States.   52d   Congress,   2d   Session.    Senate   Report    1143. 

Report  of   the   Select   Committee  on  Woman   Suffrage. 
*Vote  of  Massachusetts  on  Municipal   Suffrage   for  Women   at 

the  State  Election,  November  5,   1895. 
Wisconsin  Blue  Book,  1907.  pp.  iioo-i. 
Wisconsin    University.    Womsrn    Suffrage.    Bulletin.    Serial    No. 

214;  General  Series,  No.  22. 

A  bibliography  is  given  on  pages  3-4. 
Magazine  Articles 

American  Magazine.  70:  60-73.  My.  *io.  The  American  Woman: 

After  the  War.  Ida  M.  Tarbell. 
Annals   of   the   American   Academy.   35:    sup.    1-37.    May,    T910. 

Significance  of  the  Woman   Suffrage   Movement. 

Contains   seven   papers,   four  in   favor   of  woman   suffrage  and 
three  against. 
Arena.  41  :  ^  14-24.  Jl.  '09.   Suffrage  Question  in  the  Far  West. 

Elsie  Wallace  Moore. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  3 

•  Contains   a   map    showing   the   progress   of   woman    suffrage    in 
the  various   states   of   the  United   States. 

Atlantic  Monthly.  102:  343-6.  S.  '08.  English  Working- Woman 
and  the  Franchise.  Edith  Abbott. 

Canadian  Magazine.  19:  81-2.  My.  *02.  Woman  Suffrage  in  Col- 
orado. 

Chautauquan.  13 :  ^2-"^.  Ap.  '91.  A  Symposium — Woman's  Suf- 
frage. 

Consists  of  four  papers — two  for  the  affirmative  by  Lucy 
Stone  and  Frances  E.  Willard,  and  two  for  the  negative  by 
Rose   Terry  Cooke   and  Josephine  Henderson. 

*Chautauquan.  34:  482-4.  F.  '02.  Woman  Suffrage  in  Colorado. 

William  Macleod  Raine. 
Chautauquan.  ^tl  •  334-5-  Jl-  '03-  Woman   Suffrage  Defeated. 
Chautauquan.  58 :  166-83.  Ap.  '10.  Social  Idealism  and  Suffrage  for 

Woman.  George  Willis  Cooke. 
Collier's  Weekly.  43 :  26-7.  Ap.  3,  '09.  Woman's  Battle  for  the 

Ballot  in  Chicago.  Caroline  M.  Hill. 
Collier's  Weekly.  43:  14-5.  Ap.  17;  14-5.  My.  i;  2Z.  My.  8,  '09. 

Woman  Who  Votes.  Sarah  Comstock. 
Delineator.  74:  204.  S.  *09.  Being  a  Woman  Legislator.  Alma  V. 

Lafferty. 
Delineator.   74:   299.   O.   '09.  Recollections   of   a   Woman   Cam-. 

paigner.  Minnie  J.  Reynolds. 
*Forum.    17:    413-24.    Je.    '94.    Results   of    the    Woman-Suffrage 

Movement.  Mary  A.  Greene. 
Forum.  43 :  264-6.  Mr.  '10.  Woman  Suffrage  as  It  Looks  To- 

Day.   Mrs.   Oliver  H.   P.  Belmont. 
*Harper's    Bazar.   ZT)'-   220-1.    My.   26,   '00.   Woman    Suffrage   in 

Idaho.  Frank   Steunenberg. 
Harper's  Bazar. 

See  monthly  numbers  from  January,  1909  to  date  for  articles 
by  Ida  Husted  Harper  and  others. 

Harper's  Weekly.  44:  949-50.  O.  6,  *oo.  Female  Suffrage  in  the 

United  States.  J.  D.  Whelpley. 

A  good  summary  of  the  present  status  of  woman  suffrage 
in   the  United   States. 

Harper's  Weekly.  48:  121-2.  Ja.  23,  '04.  Women  Voters  in  Aus- 
tralia. 

Harper's  Weekly.  51 :  975-6.  Jl.  6,  '07.  Improved  Prospects  of 
Woman  Suffrage. 


4  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Harper's  Weekly.  52:  20-1.  Ap.  25,  '08.  Votes  for  Women:  An 
Object  Lesson.   Bertha  Damaris  Knobe. 

Harper's  Weekly.  52:  8-9.  D.  26,  '08.  Woman  Boss  of  Denver. 
Alfred  Damon  Runyon. 

Harper's  Weekly.  53 :  5.  My.  i,  '09.  Pope  on  Equal  Suffrage. 

Harper's  Weekly.  53 :  10.  Je.  12,  '09.  Norway's  Leader  of  Women. 
Hanna  Astrup  Larsen. 

Harper's  Weekly.  53 :  28.  Ag.  21,  '09.  How  Woman  Suffrage 
Came  to  Wyoming.   Estelline  Bennett. 

Independent.  56:  1309-11.  Je.  9,  '04.  Women's  Suffrage  in  Aus- 
tralia. Lady  Holder. 

Independent.  61 :  198-9.  Jl.  26,  *o6.  Object  Lesson.  Alice  Stone 
Blackwell. 

Independent.  63:  615-7.  S.  12,  '07.  Women  in  the  Finnish  Par- 
liament. Baroness  Gripenberg. 

Independent.  65 :  192-5.  Jl.  23,  '08.  International  Woman  Suffrage 
Congress.  Ida  Husted  Harper. 

Independent.  66:  1056-70.  My.  20,  '09.  Woman  Suffrage:  An  Ex- 
perience Meeting. 

Independent.  67 :  418-20.  Ag.  19,  '09.  Woman  Suffrage  in  South 
Africa.   Irene   M.  Ashby-Macfadyen. 

Lippincott's.  85 :  123-5.  Ja.  '10.  Leaven  of  Woman  Suffrage 
*Round  the  World.  George  Allan  England. 

♦Nineteenth  Century.  56:  833-41.  N.  '04.  Check  to  Woman  Suf- 
frage in  the  United  States.  Frank  Foxcroft. 

This  article  may  be  obtained  in  pamphlet  form  from  the 
Secretary  of  the  Massachusetts  Association  opposed  to  further 
extension   of   suffrage   to   women,    Brookline,    Mass. 

♦North  American  Review.  175:  800-10.  D.  '02.  Woman's  Half- 
Century  of  Evolution.  Susan  B.  Anthony. 

♦North  American  Review.  183 :  1272-9.  D.  21,  '06.  Australian 
Woman  and  the  Ballot.  Alice  Henry. 

♦North  American  Review.  183:  1333-5.  D.  21,  '06.  Good  Women 
a  Majority. 

♦North  American  Review.   186:   55-71.   S.  '07.  Woman   Suffrage 

throughout  the  World.  Ida  Husted  Harper. 

Reprinted  in  condensed  form  in  the  Review  of  Reviews.  36. 
481-2.   October,   1907. 

North  American  Review.  189:  502-12.  Ap.  '09.  Status  of  Woman 

Suffrage  in  the  United  States.  Ida  Husted  Harper. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  5 

Reprinted    in    condensed   form   in   the   Review    of   Reviews.    39: 
626-7.    May,    1909. 

Outlook.  65  :  430-1.  Je.  23,  '00.  Woman  Suffrage  in  the  West. 

*Outlook.  82:  167-78.  Ja.  2."],  '06.  How  Woman's  Suffrage  Works 
in  Colorado.  Lawrence  Lewis. 

Outlook.  83 :  675-6.  Jl.  21,  '06.  Woman  Suffrage.  Florence  Kelly. 

Outlook.  87:  35-9.  S.  7,  '07.  Woman  Suffrage  in  Finland.  G.  H. 
Blakeslee. 

^Outlook.  91 :  573.  Mr.  13,  '09.  Sweden  Gives  Women  Parli^i- 
mentary  Franchise. 

*Outlook.  95:  117-22.  My.  2T,  '10.  Where  the  Women  Vote. 
P.   Kennaday. 

Review  of  Reviews.  35 :  499-500.  Ap.  '07.  Finland's  Women  to 
the  Front. 

Westminster  Review.  169 :  29-40.  Ja.  '08.  Justice  between  the  Sex- 
es. Elizabeth  C.  Wolstenholme  Elmy. 

Westminster  Review.  170:  629-42.  D.  '08.  Woman  and  the  State. 
F.  W.  Hatton  Reed. 

*World  To-Day.  11:  1264-8.  D.  '06.  Present  Status  of  Woman 
Suffrage.  Ida  Husted  Harper. 

*World  To-Day.  13:  1008-12.  O.  '07.  Electing  Women  to  Par- 
liament. Ida  Flusted  Harper. 

World  To-Day.  15:  1066-71.  O.  '08.  Suffragists  and  Suffragettes. 
Winnifred  Harper  Cooley. 

^World's  Work.  17:  11419-20.  Ap.  '09.  What  Woman  Suffrage 
Does. 

The   conclusions  of  Judge  Lindsey  concerning  woman   suffrage 
in  Colorado. 

Affirmative  References 
Books,  Pamphlets  and  Documents 

Blackwell,  Alice  Stone.  Objections  answered.  34p.  pa.  National 
American  Woman  Suffrage  Association,  505  Fifth  Av.,  New 
York  City. 

Congressional  Record.  16:  1322-5.  F.  6,  '85.  Woman  Suffrage. 
Thomas  W.  Palmer. 

Congressional  Record.  18:  34-8.  D.  8,  '86.  Joint  Resolution  Pro- 
posing  an    Amendment    to   the    Constitution    of   the    United 


6  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

States  Extending  the  Right  of   Suffrage  to  Women.   Speech 
Delivered  by  Henry  W.  Blair. 
Curtis,    George    William,    Orations    and    Addresses,    edited    by 
Charles  Eliot  Norton.  Vol.  I,  pp.  181-213.  The  Right  of  Suf- 
frage. Harper  &  Brothers,  New  York,  1894. 

An  .address  given  before  the  constitutional  convention  of 
the  state  of  New  York,  at  Albany,  in  1867,  following  the  pro- 
posal of  an  amendment  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage. 

Dilke,  Mrs.  Ashton.  Woman's  Suffrage. 

Fawcett,  Henry  &  Millicent  Garrett.  Essays  and  Lectures  en  So- 
cial and  Political  Subjects,  pp.  230-91.  Macmillan  &  Co.,  Lon- 
don, 1872. 

Higginson,  Thomas  Wentworth.  Common  Sense  about  Women, 
pp.  303-403.  Lee  &  Shepard,  Boston,  1882. 

Jacobi,  Mary  Putnam.  Common  Sense  Applied  to  Woman  Suf- 
frage. G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York,  1894. 

Mathew,  Arnold  Harris.  Woman  Suft'rage.  T.  C.  &  E.  C.  Jack, 
London,  1907. 

Mill,  John  Stuart.  Considerations  on  Representative  Govern- 
ment. Chap.  VHL  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  New  York,   1882. 

Mill,  John  Stuart.  The  Subjection  of  Women.  Longmans,  Green 
&  Co.,  London,  1869. 

Parsons,  Frank.  Story  of  New  Zealand.  Chap.  VHL  C.  F. 
Taylor,  Philadelphia,   1904. 

United  States.  47th  Congress,  ist  Session.  Senate  Miscellaneous 
Document  74.  Arguments  of  the  Woman-Suffrage  Dele- 
gates before  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary  of  the  United 
States  Senate,  January  23,  1880. 

United  States.  49th  Congress,  ist  Session.  Senate  Report  70. 
Report  of  Select  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage. 

United  States.  50th  Congress,  2d  Session.  Senate  Report  2543. 
Report  of  the  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage. 

United  States.  51st  Congress,  ist  Session.  Senate  Report  1576. 
Report  of  the  Committee  on  Woman  Suffrage. 

United  States.  51st  Congress,  ist  Session.  House  Report  2254. 
Woman  Suffrage. 

United  States.  53d  Congress,  2d  Session.  Senate  Miscellaneous 
Document  121.  Hearing  before  the  Committee  on  Woman 
Suffrage,  February  21,  1894. 


WOMAN    SUFFRAGE  7 

United  States.  54th  Congress,  ist  Session.  Senate  Document  157. 
Report  of  Hearing  before  the  Committee  on  Woman  Suf- 
frage,  January  28,   1896. 

Reports  and  pamphlets  may  be  obtained  from  the  secretary 
of  the  National  American  Woman  Suffrage  Association,  505  Fifth 
Av.,  New  York  City;  also  from  the  secretary  of  the  New  York 
State    Suffrage   Association. 

Magazine  Articles 

American   Magazine.  67:  288-90.  Ja.  '09.   Problem  of  the   Intel- 
lectual Woman.  C.  M.  H. 
Compares   the   status   of   woman   with   that   of   the   negro. 

American  Magazine.  68:  292-301.  Jl.  '09.  Votes  for  Women.  Wil- 
liam Isaac  Thomas. 

*Arena.  10:  201-13.  Jl.  '94.  Last  Protest  against  Woman's  En- 
franchisement. James  L.  Hughes. 

A  reply  to  Profes'sor  Goldwin  Smith's  essay  on  "Woman 
Suffrage." 

*Arena.  15 :  642-53.  Mr.  '96.  Bishop  Doane  and  Woman  Suffrage. 

Margaret  Noble  Lee. 
*Arena.    16:    570-80.    S.    '96.    Right   of    Woman    to    the    Ballot* 

Charles   H.   Chapman. 
Arena.  16:  748-51.  O.  '96.  Dual  Suffrage.  Mrs.  Edward  Quincy 

Norton. 
*Arena.  40:  92-4.  Jl.  '08.  Shall  our  Mothers,  Wives,  and  Sisters 

be  our  Equals  or  our  Subjects?  Frank   Parsons. 
Atlantic  Monthly.  102:   196-202.  Ag.  '08.  What  It  Means  to  Be 
,   an  Enfranchised  Woman.  Ellis  Meredith. 

An   account   of   woman    suffrage    in    Colorado. 
Canadian  Magazine.  33:  17-21.  My.  '09.  Why  I  am  a  Suffragette. 

Arthur   Hawkes. 

Answers  the  following  objections:  1.  Women  are  not  fitted 
for  the  suffrage.  2.  It  will  weaken  the  home.  3.  It  will  destroy 
womanliness. 

*Century.  48:  605-13.  Ag.  '94.  Right  and  Expediency  of  Woman 
Suffrage.   George  F.   Hoar, 

■Contemporary  Review.  83 :  653-60.  My.  '03.  Justice  for  the  Gan- 
der— Justice  for  the  Goose.  Frances  Power  Cobbe. 

^Contemporary  Review.  94:  11-6.  Jl.  '08.  Liberalism  and  Wom- 
an's Suffrage.  Bertrand  Russell. 


8  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Era.  10 :  409-16.  O.  '02.  Equal  Suffrage  in  Colorado.  Helen  Marsh 
Wixson. 

Everybody's  Magazine.  21 :  72S-3S.  D.  '09.  Why  ?  Elizabeth  Rob- 
ins. 

Fortnightly  Review.  89:  634-44.  Ap.  '08.  Ideals  of  a  Woman's 
Party.     Agnes   Grove. 

Fortnightly  Review.  90:  258-71.  Ag.  '08.  Sex-Disability  and 
Adult  Suffrage.  Teresa  Billington-Greig. 

Fortnightly  Review.  90:  445-57.  S.  '08.  Constitutional  Basis  of 
Women's  Suffrage.  C.  C.  Stopes. 

Harper's  Bazar.  41 :  196.  F.  '07.  Good  Women  a  Majority. 

Reprinted  in  full   from  the  North  American  Review.   183:  1333- 
5.    December,    21,    1906. 

Harper's   Bazar.  42:    1 183-6.   D.   '08.   Woman    Suffrage   in    Eng- 
land. Sydney  Brooks. 
Harper's  Bazar.  43:  1215.  D.  '09.  Votes  for  Women.  Ida  Husted 

Harper. 
Harper's   Bazar.  44:   178.   Mr.  '10.  Woman-Suffrage  Movement. 

Ida  Husted   Harper. 
Harper's  Weekly.  47:   933.  Je.   6,   '03.   Political   Women.   Mary 

Garrett  Hay. 
♦Harper's  Weekly.  50:  1702-3.  D.  i,  '06.  Positive  Arguments  for 

Woman  Suffrage. 
Harper's  Weekly.  52:  6.  Ap.   11,  '08.   Stock  Argument  against 

Woman  Suffrage. 
Harper's  Weekly.  53:  15-6.  Mr.  13,  '09.  Campaigning  for  Equal 

Franchise.  William  Hemmingway. 
Harper's  Weekly.  53:  6.  Jl.  31,  '09.  Influence  not  Government. 

H.  S.  Howard. 
Independent.  67 :  261-2.  Jl.  29,  '09.  Counter  Influence  to  Woman 

Suffrage. 

An    answer    to    Miss    Chittenden's    article    in    the    Independent. 
67:  246-9.    July    29,    1909. 

Independent.  68 :  902-4.  Ap.  28,  '10.  President  and  the  Suffragists. 
Ida  Husted  Harper. 

*Ladies'  Home  Journal.  27:  21-2.  Ja.  '10.  Why  Women  Should 
Vote.  Jane  Addams. 

*Lippincott's.  82:  101-4.  Jl.  '08.  Woman  Suffrage  in  America.  An- 
nie  R.   Ramsey. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  9 

Reprinted   in   condensed   form   in   the   Review   of   Reviews.    38: 
94-5.    July,   1908. 

Nineteenth    Century.    56 :  105-12.      Jl.    '04.    Political    Woman    in 

Australia.    Vida    Goldstein. 
Nineteenth  Century.  61 :  472-6.  Mr.  '07.  Women  and  Politics :  A. 

Reply.   Eva  Gore-Booth. 

Reprinted    in   full    in   Living   Age.    253:  131-4.    April    20,    1907. 
Nineteenth  Century.  63 :  819-24.  My.  '08.  Protection  of  Women. 

Jessie  Payne  Margoliouth. 
Nineteenth  Century.  64 :  495-506.  S.  '08.  Women  and  the  Suffrage. 

Eva  Gore-Booth. 

Reprinted  in  full   in  Living  Age.   259:  131-40.    October,   17,   1908. 

North  American  Review.  143 :  371-81.  O.  '86.  Woman  Suffrage. 

Mary   A.    Livermore. 
♦North  American  Review.  163 :  91-7.  Jl.  '96.  Why  Women  Should 

Have  the  Ballot.  John  Gibbon. 
North  American  Review.   178:  362-74.   Mr.  '04.  Would   Woman 

Suffrage  Benefit  the  State  and  Woman  Herself?    Ida  Husted 

Harper. 

An  answer   to   "Woman's  Assumption   of   Sex   Superiority."   A. 
N.    Meyer.    North   American   Review.    178:  103-9.    January,    1904. 

North  American  Review.  179:30-41.  Jl.  '04.  Why  Women  Can- 
not Vote  in  the  United  States.  Ida  Husted  Harper. 

North    American    Review.    183 :  484-98.    S.    21,    '06.    Suffrage — a 
Right.   Ida   HuvSted   Harper. 

North   American   Review.    183 :   689-90.    O.   5,   '06.    Necessity   of 
Woman  Suffrage. 
Reprinted    in    full    in   Harper's    Bazar.    41:  34-5.    January,    1907. 

North   American  Review.    183:   830-1.   O.    19,  '06.  Woman's   In- 
herent Right  to  Vote. 
Reprinted  in   full    in   Harper's   Bazar.    41:  300-1.    March,    1907. 

North  American  Review.  183 :  1203-6.  D.  7,  '06.  Woman  Suffrage 
in   Colorado. 
Reprinted  in   full   in   Harper's   Bazar.    41:  193-4.    February,   1907. 

North  American  Review.  188 :  650-8.  N.  '08.  Woman  Movement 
in  England.  Charles  F.  Aked. 

North  American  Review.  100:664-74.  N.  '09.  Woman's  Right  to 
Govern  Herself.  Alva  E.  Belmont. 


10  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

*North  American  Review.  191 :  75-86.  Ja.  '10.  Appeal  of  Politics 
to  Woman.  Rosamond  Lee  Sutherland. 

North  American  Review.  191 :  527-36.  Ap.  '10.  Woman  and  Dem- 
ocracy. Borden  Parker  Bowne. 

North   American  Review.   191 :  701-20.   My.   '10.   Inherent  Right. 
G.  Harvey. 

Outlook.  75 :  997-1000.  D.  26,  '03.  Women  in  Colorado  under  the 
Suffrage.  Mary  G.  Slocum. 

*Outlook.  82:622.  Mr.  17,  '06.  Child  Labor  and  Woman  Suffrage. 
Florence  Kelly. 

Outlook.  85 :  1002.  Ap.  27,  '07.  Plea  for  Unconscious  Slaves.  R. 
V.  Phelan. 

Outlook.  90:  774-5.  D.  5,  '08.  Woman  Suffrage.  I.  A.  W. 

Outlook.  91 :  780-4.  Ap.  3,  '09.  Case  for  Woman  Suffrage.  Julia 
Ward  Howe. 

Overland,    n.s.    51  :  513-4.   Je.   '08.    Woman   Suffrage    Movement, 
Kate  Ames. 

Public.  11:77.  Ap.  24,  '08.  Demand  of  Women  for  Woman  Suf- 
frage. 

*Public.    11:205-6.   My.  29,  '08.  Women  Who   Know  that  They 
Need  the   Ballot.  Jane  Addams. 
Reprinted    from    the    Woman's    Journal.    March    28,    '08. 

Public.    12 :   393.   Ap.   23,   '09.    Heart   of   the    Suffrage    Question. 

Daniel  Kiefer. 
Review  of  Reviews.  2)7  •  484-6.  Ap.  '08.  Campaign  of  the  English 

Suffragettes. 
Westminster    Review.    162:255-61.    S.    '04.    Are    Women    Ready 

for  the  Franchise?  Sarah  E.  Saville. 
Westminster  Review.   163:266-71.   Mr.  '05.   How  the   Vote  Has 

Affected  Womanhood   in   Colorado. 
Westminster  Review.    168 :  622-4.   D.   '07.   Women   and   Sweated 

Industries.  I.  D.  Pearce. 
Westminster    Review.    169 :  292-8.    Mr.    '08.    Suffragists    Again ! 

Gladys  Jones. 
Westminster  Review.  169:444-51.  Ap.  '08.  An  Awakening  Wom- 
anhood. I.  D.  Pearce. 
Westminster   Review.    169:523-31.    My.    '08.    Historic    Franchise. 

Trevor  Fletcher. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  ii 

Westminster  Review.   170:43-53.  Jl.   '08.  Woman  Movement  in 

New   Zealand.   Edith   Searle   Grossmann. 
Westminster   Review.   170:525-30.   N.   '08.    Militant   Tactics   and 

Woman's  Suffrage.  Mona  Caird. 
Westminster  Review.  171 :  383-95-  Ap.  '09.  Women's   Industries. 

Frances  Swiney. 

Her  argument  is  that  the  economic  position  of  woman  will 
be   benefited    by    the    suffrage. 

Westminster  Review.   171 :  396-9-   Ap.  '09.   Plainer  Truths  about 

Woman  Suffrage.  F.  W.  Hatton  Reed. 
Westminster  Review.  171:491-9.  My.  '09.  Our  Modern  Bunyans. 

James  A.  Aldis. 
Westminster  Review.  172:186-90.  Ag.  '09.  Heredity:  A  Plea  for 

Woman's  Suffrage.  Annabel  Clark  Gale. 
Westminster  Review.  172:263-6.  S.  '09.  Girl  and  the  Vote.  H.  G. 

TurnbuU. 
*Woman's   Home  Companion,  p.  20.  Ap.  '08.  Working  Woman 

and  the  Ballot.  Jane  Addams. 
World  To-Day.  12:  418-21.  Ap.  '07.  Housekeepers'  Need  of  the 

Ballot.  Molly  Warren. 

Negative  References 
Books,  PampJilets  and  Documents 

Buckley,  James  Monroe.  Wrong  and  Peril  of  Woman  Suffrage. 
The  Fleming  FI.  Revell  Co.,  New  York,   1909. 

Bushnell,  Horace.  Women's   Suffrage;  the  Reform  against  Na- 
ture. 

Congressional  Record.   18 :  980-3.  Ja.   25,  'Sj.   Woman   Suffrage. 
Joseph  E.  Brown. 

Congressional   Record.    18 :  986-7.   Ja.   25,   '87.   Woman   Suffrage. 
George  G.  Vest. 

Hart,  A.  L.  Women's  Suffrage  and  the  National  Danger. 

Johnson,  Helen  Kendrick.     Woman  and  the  Republic.  D.  Apple- 
ton  &  Co.,  New  York,  1897. 

Johnson,    Rossiter.    Blank-Cartridge    Ballot.    8p.    pa.    New   York 

State  Association  Opposed  to  the  Extension  of  the  Suffrage 

to  Women. 

May  be  obtained  of  the  Secretary,  Mrs.  George  Phillips, 
Room  819,  Engineering  Societies  Building,  29  West  39th  St., 
New   York   City. 


12  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

McCracken,  Elizabeth.  Why  Women  Do  Not  Want  the  Ballot. 

McCracken,  Elizabeth.  Women  of  America.  Chap.  IV.  Macmillan 
&  Co.,  New  York,  1904. 

Parkman,  Francis.  Some  of  the  Reasons  against  Woman  Suf- 
frage. i6p.  pa.  Issued  by  the  Massachusetts  Man  Suffrage  As- 
sociation, 7a  Park  St.,  Boston. 

Smith,  Goldwin.  Essays  on  Questions  of  the  Day.  pp.  197-238. 
Macmillan  &  Co.,  New  York,  1894. 

United  States.  526.  Congress,  26.  Session.  Senate  Miscellaneous 
.  Document  28.  Memorial  of  Caroline  F.  Corbin  for  American 
Women  Remonstrants  to  the  Extension  of  Suffrage  to  Wom- 
en, Praying  for  a  Hearing  before  Congress. 

Printed  with  this  memorial  is  a  letter  from  the  Right 
Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.  P.,  remonstrating  against  female  suf- 
frage. 

United  States.  54th  Congress,  ist  Session.  Senate  Report  787. 
Minority  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Woman   Suffrage. 

Why  Women  Do  Not  Want  to  Vote.  6p.  pa.  Anti-Suffrage  As- 
sociation of  the  Third  Judicial  District,  State  of  New  York, 
Albany,  N.  Y. 

Reports  and  pamphlets  may  be  obtained  from  Mrs.  George 
Phillips,  Secretary  of  the  New  York  Association  Opposed  to  the 
Extension  of  Suffrage  to  Women,  Room  819,  Engineering  Socie- 
ties Building,  29  West  39th  St.,  New  York  City.  Also  from  the 
secretaries  of  the  Illinois  Association  Opposed  to  the  Extension 
of  Suffrage  to  Women,  597  Dearborn  Av.,  Chicago,  111.,  and  the 
Massachusetts  Anti-Suffrage  Association,  P.  O.  Box  134,  Brook- 
line,   Mass. 

Magazine   Articles 

♦Arena.  2 :  175-81.  Je.  '00.  Real  Case  of  the  Remonstrants  against 

Woman  Suffrage.  O.  B.  Frothingham. 
*  Atlantic  Monthly.  65 :  31 0-20.  Mr.  '90.  Woman  Suffrage  Pro  and 

Con.  Charles  Worcester  Clark. 
Atlantic  Monthly.  92 :  289-96.  S.  '03.  Why  Women  Do  Not  Wish 

the  Suffrage.  Lyman  Abbott. 
Atlantic    Monthly.    96 :  750-9.    D.    '05.    Woman    Suffrage    in    the 

Tenements.  Elizabeth  McCracken. 
Atlantic    Monthly.    105:297-301.    Mr.    *io.    Change    in   the    Fem- 
inine Ideal.  Margaret  Deland. 
"•^Bibliotheca  Sacra.  67:335-46.  Ap.  '10.  Is  Woman's  Suffrage  an 

Enlightened   and  Justifiable   Policy  for  the   State?   Henry  A. 

Stimson. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  13 

♦Century.  48:613-23.  Ag.  '94.  Wrongs  and  Perils  of  Woman  Suf- 
frage. James  Monroe  Buckley. 

Edinburgh  Review.  208:  246-63.  Jl.  '08.  Women  and  the  Fran- 
chise. 
Reprinted   in   full    in   Living   Age.    258:  451-63.    August   22,    1908. 

Educational  Review.  2f>  •  398-404.  N.  '08.  Some  Suffragist  Argu- 
ments. Mary  Augusta  Ward.   (Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.) 

Forum.  43 :  495-504.  My.  '10.  Facts  about  Suffrage  and  Anti- 
Suffrage.  Mrs.  Gilbert  E.  Jones. 

*Gunton's  Magazine.  20:333-44.  Ap.  '01.  Scientific  Aspects  of  the 
Woman    Suffrage    Question.    Mrs.    Mary   K.    Sedgwick. 

Harper's  Bazar.  43 :  525-6.  My.  '09.  Ideal  of  Equality  for  Men 
and  Women.   Priscilla  Leonard. 

*Harper's  Bazar.  43 :  1 169-70.  N.  '09.  Working- Woman  and  Anti- 
Suffrage.  Priscilla  Leonard. 

Independent.  67 :  246-9.  Jl.  29,  '09.  Counter  Influence  to  Woman 
Suffrage.    Alice    Hill    Chittenden. 

Ladies'  Home  Journal.  22 :  7-8.  O.  '05.  Would  Woman  Suffrage 

Be  Unwise?  Grover  Cleveland. 

His  arguments  are:  1.  Woman's  sphere  is  the  home;  2.  The 
majority  of  women  are  not  in  favor  of  the  suffrage;  3.  The  re- 
sults  where   tried  are   not   favorable. 

*Ladies'  Home  Journal.  25:  15.  N.  '08.  Why  I  Do  not  Believe  in 
Woman  Suffrage.  Mary  Augusta  Ward.  (Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward.) 

Lippincott's.  83:586-92.  My.  '09.  Shall  Women  Vote?  Ouida. 

Reprinted  in  condensed  form  in  the  Review  of  Reviews.  39: 
624-5.   May,   1909. 

Living  Age.  225 :  774-8o.  Je.  23,  '00.  Growing  Bureaucracy  and 

.    Parliamentary   Decline.   Alice    Stopford   Green. 

Living  Age.  260 :  323-9.  F.  6,  '09.  Suffrage  and  Anti-Suffrage.  M. 

E.  Simkins. 

The  burden  of  the  suffrage  would  come  on  the  working-wom- 
an  who   is   unequal   to   the   task. 

Living  Age.  261 :  240-3.  Ap.  24,  '09.  "Seems  so"  — the  Suffragettes. 

Stephen  Reynolds. 

His  main  argument  is  that  working-men  and  women  do  not 
desire  the  suffrage. 

Living  Age.  262 :  462-7.  Ag.  21,  '09.  Modern  Surrender  of  Wom- 
en. Gilbert  Keith  Chesterton. 


14  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Nineteenth    Century.    6i  :  22'/-2,6.    F.    '07.    Women    and    Politics. 

Caroline  E.  Stephen. 

Reprinted  in  full  in  Living  Age.  252:  579-86.  March  9,  1907. 
Nineteenth  Century.  61 :  595-601.  Ap.  '07.  Women  and  Politics : 

Two  Rejoinders. 

Reprinted    in    full    in    Living    Age.     253:  271-6.     May    4,     1907. 

Nineteenth  Century.  63 :  381-5.   Mr.   '08.   Woman's   Plea   against 
Woman  Suffrage.  Edith  M.  Massie. 
Reprinted  in   full   in  Living  Age.   2^7:  84-8.   April   11,    1908. 

Nineteenth  Century.  64:64-73.  Jl.  '08.  Women  and  the  Suffrage. 
A.  M.  Lovat. 

♦Nineteenth  Century.  64 :  343-52.  Ag.  '08.  Women's  Anti-Suffrage 
Movement.  Mary  Augusta  Ward.  (Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.) 
Reprinted   in  full   in  Living  Age.    259:  3-11.    October  3,   1908. 

Nineteenth  Century.  64:1018-24,  D.  '08.  Representation  of  Wom- 
en :  A  Consultative  Chamber  of  Women.  Caroline  E.  Stephen. 

Nineteenth  Century.  64 :  1025-9.  D.  '08.  Representation  of  Wom- 
en. Edward  Alfred  Goulding. 

Nineteenth  Century.  66:  1051-7.  D.  '09.  Then  and  Now.  Ethel  B. 
Harrison. 

*North  American  Review.  161 :  257-67.  S.  '95.  Why  Women  Do 
Not  Want  the   Ballot.  William  Croswell  Doane. 

North  American  Review.  163 :  537-48.  N.  '96.  Later  Aspects  of 
Woman   Suffrage.  William   Croswell   Doane. 

North  American  Review.  178:  103-9.  Ja.  '04.  Woman's  Assump- 
tion of  Sex  Superiority.  Annie  Nathan  Meyer. 

Her   argument   is   that   women    have   not   shown   the   character 
necessary    for    success    in    political    life. 

*North  American  Review.  190:158-69.  Ag.  '09.  Impediments  to 
Woman  Suffrage.   Mrs.  Gilbert  E.  Jones. 

North  American  Review.  191 :  549-58.  Ap.  '10.  Woman's  Re- 
lation to  Government.  Mrs.  Williams  Forse  Scott. 

Outlook.  64:573-4.    Mr.   10,   '00.   Concerning  Woman's   Suffrage. 

Outlook.  68:353-5.  Je.  8,  '01.  Rights  of  Man.  Lyman  Abbott. 

Outlook.  75 :  737-44.  N.  28,  '03.  Woman's  Suffrage  in  Colorado. 
Elizabeth  McCracken. 

Outlook.  90 :  848-9.  D.  19,  '08.  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  Elihu 
Root  on  Woman's  Suffrage. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  15 

Outlook.  91 :  784-8.  Ap.  3,  '09.  Assault  on  Womanhood.  Lyman 
Abbott. 

Outlook.  91 :  836-40.  Ap.  10,  '09.  Profession  of  Motherhood.  Ly- 
man Abbott. 

Outlook.  93 :  868-74.  D.  18,  '09,  Melancholia  and  the  Silent  Wom- 
an. Edvvina  Stanton  Babcock. 

♦Quarterly  Review.  210 :  276-304.  Ja.  '09.  Woman  Suffrage.  Al- 
bert Venn  Dicey. 
Reprinted    in    full    in    Living   Age.    261:  67-84.    April    10,    1909. 

World  To-Day.   15:1061-6.   O.  ^08.   Should  Women  Vote?  Vir- 
ginia B.  Le  Roy. 


GENERAL  DISCUSSION 

Chautauquan.  34:  482-4.  February,  1902. 

Woman  Suffrage  in  Colorado.     William  MacLeod  Raine. 

Equal  suffrage  in  Colorado  cannot  fairly  be  judged  by 
facts  accomplished;  still  less  by  the  immoderate  claims  that 
have  been  made  for  it.  It  has  not  regenerated  society  nor 
abolished  political  corruption.  It  has  not  even  prevented 
bloodshed  at  the  polls  and  made  the  election  of  bad  men 
impossible.  The  time-serving  politician  and  the  ward-heeler 
have  not  become  ineligible  for  public  preferment,  nor  has 
there  been  in  any  way  a  tremendous  influence  for  good 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  electorate.  As  a  short  cut  to 
the  millennium  woman  suffrage  may  be  counted  out  as  a 
failure,  for  even  upon  moral  questions  the  line  of  political 
cleavage  in  the  woman  vote  is  as  decided  as  among  men. 
In  point  of  fact  the  ship  of  state  appears  to  sail  on  in  much 
the  same  way  as  before.  To  the  surprise  of  most  people 
the  extension  of  the  suffrage  proved  an  incident  rather  than 
an  epoch. 

But  the  advocates  of  equal  suffrage  have  a  right  to  de- 
mand a  patient  and  more  than  fitful  trial.  It  may  be  just- 
ly claimed  that  if  men  have  not  been  able  to  weed  out  the 
evils  of  our  political  life  in  thousands  of  years  women 
should  not  be  expected  to  do  so  in  a  decade.  Moral  values 
are  not  easily  estimated,  and  centuries  rather  than  years  are 
the  measure  of  an  advance  in  the  social  life. 

When  Colorado  was  admitted  as  a  state  there  was  a 
provision  in  the  constitution  giving  power  to  the  general 
assembly  to  extend  the  suffrage  to  women,  such  action  to 
take  effect  only  when  approved  by  a  majority  of  voters  at 


i8  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

a  general  election.  There  was  at  that  time  considerable 
agitation  of  the  question,  and  at  the  general  election  the 
vote  was  more  than  two  to  one  against  the  equal  suffragists. 
From  that  time  until  the  legislature  met  in  1893  there  had 
been  practically  no  discussion  of  an  extension  of  the  suffrage, 
but  in  the  populistic  wave  which  was  then  sweeping  through 
the  west,  one  of  the  features  of  the  radical  program  was 
equal   suffrage   on   the   broad   general   ground   of  justice. 

The  bill  passed  the  legislature  practically  by  default,  for 
the  reason  that  the  lawmakers  desired  to  shift  the  respon- 
sibility to  the  people.  Politicians  were  afraid  to  vote  against 
an  extension  lest  their  vote  might  later  prove  a  boomerang. 
At  the  general  election  various  things  tended  to  help  the 
measure  besides  its  own  specific  merits.  Many  were  indif- 
ferent, and  did  not  vote  at  all;  others  voted  for  it  out  of 
gallantry.  Political  conditions  were  much  unsettled,  and 
many  regarded  it  simply  as  a  part  of  the  propaganda  which 
was  to  bring  the  millennium.  The  conditions  which  made 
Waite  governor  of  Colorado  were  largely  responsible  for 
the  extension  of  the  suffrage  to  women. 

At  the  next  general  election  the  wave  of  populism  was 
already  beginning  to  recede.  Governor  Waite  was  a  candi- 
date for  re-election  and  the  cry  of  his  opponents  was,  "Let 
us  redeem  the  state."  The  election  was  hotly  contested, 
and  there  was  a  very  full  registration.  At  that  time  forty- 
seven  per  cent  of  the  entire  registered  vote  of  the  state  was 
cast  by  women.  During  that  campaign  and  subsequently 
thereto,  many  women  of  high  character,  social  standing,  and 
intelligence  took  an  active  part  in  politics.  Generally  speak- 
ing, however,  then  as  now,  the  women  adopted  without  much 
investigation  the  political  principles  advocated  by  their  hus- 
bands or  fathers.  Practical  politics  did  not  interest  them. 
Attendance  at  primaries  and  caucuses  was  an  onerous  bur- 
den they  did  not  attempt  to  shoulder.  In  this  respect  they 
were  scarcely  more  negligent  than  the  male  voter. 

Politicians  have  nothing  to  say  today  in  public  regarding 
woman  suffrage.  They  consider  it  as  an  accomplished  and 
immutable  fact,  not  to  be  openly  and  frankly  discussed  for 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE         -  19 

fear  of  alienating  votes.  In  private  they  are  usually  op- 
posed to*  it,  because  it  makes  the  vote  more  cumbersome, 
the  purchasable  element  larger,  and  the  cost  of  an  election 
greater.  It  is  the  testimony  of  political  bosses  that  the 
woman  vote  is  more  of  an  uncertain  quantity  than  that  of  the 
men,  that  it  is  more  largely  controlled  by  the  emotions,  and 
that  it  cannot  be  depended  upon  so  surely  along  party  lines. 
They  are  agreed,  too,  that  the  vote  of  women  in  con- 
ventions is  more  easily  manipulated  than  the  vote  of  men, 
and  that  this  is  due  not  so  much  to  inexperience  as  to  fem- 
inine vanity;  that  generally  speaking  the  women  are  more 
anxious  to  determine  the  right,  and  less  able  to  do  so,  not 
so  much  by  reason  of  inexperience  as  on  account  of  an  in- 
herent fundamental  difficulty  of  sex.  The  actual  party  work- 
ers are  not  generally  the  best  classes  of  women  in  the 
community.  Like  the  men,  they  are  in  politics  for  what 
they  can  get  out  of  it.  This  was,  of  course,  to  be  expected, 
and  simply  parallels  the  experience  of  our  political  con- 
ditions everywhere.  Women  of  a  certain  type  are  in  pol- 
itics, just  as  men  of  the  same  type,  for  their  own  personal 
advancement.  At  least  the  women  can  claim  with  truth 
that  the  ward-heelers  among  the  men  number  many  more 
than  those  of  the  women.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  in 
the  state  penitentiary  at  Canon  City  are  five  hundred  men 
and   only  three   women. 

Newspapers  also  may  be  considered  as  special  pleaders 
for  woman  suffrage,  since  they  scarcely  dare  to  oppose  it 
for  fear  of  loss  of  patronage.  The  majority  of  the  men  of 
the  state,  view  with  cynical  distrust  equal  suffrage,  and  I 
believe  that  the  majority  of  the  women  are  indifferent.  Yet 
in  spite  of  this,  woman  suffrage  has  resulted  in  a  quicken- 
ing of  the  civic  conscience  among  women,  and  in  distinct 
progress  toward  higher  civic  life,  judging  from  an  impar- 
tial examination  of  the  ground.  On  the  whole,  the  private 
character  of  office-seekers  has  been  of  a  higher  type  than 
before,  owing  to  the  close  scrutiny  of  the  Civic  Federation 
and  other  women's  organizations,  which  have  induced  con- 
ventions   to    hesitate    in    nominating    a    man    of    pronounced 


20  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

immortality  or  unworthiness.  The  emphatic  rebuke  given  at 
the  last  election  to  a  very  brilliant  but  profligate  politician 
should  make  clear  to  party  managers  the  inexpediency  of 
such  nominations. 

Political  enfranchisement  of  women,  and  the  growth  of 
women's  clubs  in  the  past  few  years,  appear  to  have  re- 
acted upon  each  other  in  stimulating  interest  among  a  con- 
siderable proportion  of  that  sex.  There  has  certainly  been 
a  broadening  of  responsibility  in  affairs  of  the  body  politic. 
In  1893  women  were  not  prepared  for  suffrage  and  had  to 
rely  largely  upon  the  advice  of  their  male  relatives;  but  at 
the  last  election  women's  partisan  clubs  might  have  been 
found  all  over  the  state,  in  some  cases  organized  before 
those  of  the  men.  Recently  at  a  Prohibition  convention  held 
in  the  city  of  Denver  to  choose  candidates  for  the  spring 
city  election,  a  slate  composed  entirely  of  women  was  nom- 
inated because  no  men  could  be  found  to  accept  the  places. 

Unfortunately  no  statistics  are  available  for  a  compari- 
son of  the  relative  number  of  men  and  women  voting  since 
the  adoption  of  equal  suffrage,  but  a  census  taken  at  the 
last  election  shows  that  in  Arapahoe  county  (practically 
Denver)  forty-two  per  cent,  of  the  w^omen  voted,  and  in 
other  counties,  with  the  exception  of  the  rural  mountain 
districts,  from  forty  to  forty-five  per  cent. 

Colorado  has  been  among  the  foremost  states  of  the 
union  in  reform  legislation  during  the  past  eight  years. 
Laws  have  been  enacted  in  regard  to  the  property  and  ma- 
ternal rights  of  women  that  were  much  needed.  A  few  years 
ago  a  woman  could  not  prevent  her  husband  from  mortgag- 
ing the  roof  over  her  head.  Through  the  efforts  of  women 
legislators  all  community  property  now  requires  in  transfer 
the  signatures  of  both  husband  and  wife.  Organizations  of 
women  have  had  bills  introduced  for  new  primary  and  elec- 
tion laws,  as  well  as  one  in  the  interests  of  civil  service 
reform.  A  bill  for  raising  the  legal  age  of  consent  for  girls 
to  eighteen  years,  was  championed  by  women  and  success- 
fully carried  through. 

The  newly  aroused  interest  of  women  in  civic  aifairs  has 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  21 

manifested  itself  in  other  ways,  in  the  greater  cleanliness  of 
streets,  in  the  city  park  improvements,  and  especially  in  the 
care,  ventilation,  and  artistic  decoration  of  school  buildings. 
The  women  members  of  the  various  state  boards  have  done 
good  work  in  furthering  the  interests  of  their  charges.  This 
has  been  notably  true  in  those  boards  relating  to  the  care 
of  the  criminal  and  pauper  classes,  manifesting  itself  in  the 
more  efficient  management  of  the  female  wards  of  the  state 
and  in  the  improved  conditions  of  the  state  institutions 
generall}'.  The  Industrial  Home  for  Girls  is  a  shining  ex- 
ample of  this.  It  would  seem  not  only  the  part  of  justice, 
but  also  of  wisdom,  to  give  women  a  fair  representation  on 
the  governing  boards  of  those  institutions  in  which  they 
have  naturally  'a  special  interest,  such  as  charitable  and  re- 
formatory institutions  for  girls,  women,  and  boys,  public 
schools,  and  co-educational  state  universities.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  girl  both  in  early  life,  and  later  during  the 
four  impressionable  college  years,  can  hardly  be  secured 
along  the  best  lines  by  placing  the  direction  of  their  lives 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  men,  who  are  confessedly  not  able 
to  meet  the  needs  of  their  own  growing  girls  without  the 
aid  of  a  woman.  There  are  no  doubt  qualifications  inher- 
ent in  her  sex  which  give  to  woman  a  clearer  insight  into 
certain  questions  than  a  man  can  have. 

The  fear  that  women  would  flood  the  public  offices,  or 
would  take  in  any  way  an  undue  part  in  public  life,  has  not 
been  realized  in  Colorado.  Since  the  political  enfranchise- 
ment of  women  there  have  usually  been  three  members  of 
that  sex  in  the  Colorado  legislature,  but  at  the  present  time, 
owing  to  a  mistake  of  the  nominating  conventions,  there  is 
but  one.  The  only  office  on  the  state  ticket  conceded  to  a 
woman  is  that  of  superintendent  of  public  instruction.  The 
career  of  Mrs.  Helen  L.  Grenfell  is  itself  an  argument  in 
favor  of  the  admission  of  women  to  public  life.  From 
childhood  she  has  always  been  much  interested  in  political 
questions  and  those  relating  to  an  advance  in  civic  life. 
Having  been  several  times  elected  school  superintendent  of 
her   own    county,    she    came   to    the    office    of    state    superin- 


22  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

tendent  with  a  tact,  a  knowledge,  and  an  enthusiasm  for 
work  that  has  accomplished  notable  results.  Mrs.  Grenfell 
is  strong,  earnest,  competent,  yet  womanly  and  inspiring. 
She  has  not  made  her  office  wait  upon  politics,  and  the  re- 
sult has  amply  justified  her.  During  the  recent  campaign 
she  was  endorsed  for  a  second  term  by  nearly  a.U  the  lead- 
ing educators  of  the  state,  and  at  the  election  justified  her 
nomination  from  a  party  point  of  view  by  running  five  thou- 
sand votes  ahead  of  her  ticket.  Mrs.  Grenfell  asks  no  spe- 
cial recognition  on  account  of  her  sex,  though  she  has  al- 
ways met  with  courteous  treatment.  She  stands  on  her 
merits  alone,  as  all  women  who  are  successful  in  public  af- 
fairs must  do,  and  on  account  of  her  reasonable  and  imper- 
sonal point  of  view  has  the  faculty  of  working  in  harmony 
with  the  men  associated  with  her.  It  would  be  hard  to  find 
a  man  better  fitted  for  the  position  than  is  Mrs.  Grenfell. 

There  may  perhaps  be  some  justification  for  the  charge 
that  certain  women  neglect  their  homes  for  politics.  The 
professional  ward  politician  is  at  present  not  in  the  highest 
grade  of  civilization,  and  it  would  appear  to  make  no  differ- 
ence whether  that  politician  is  a  man  or  a  woman.  As  to 
whether  her  political  activities  are  the  cause  of  her  delin- 
quencies, one  might  submit  that  politics  being  eliminated  the 
same  woman  would  neglect  her  domestic  duties  for  the 
club,  society,  or  church  work,  or  to  shop  or  gossip,  accord- 
ing to  her  nature  and  her  opportunities. 

To  sum  up,  although  now  a  part  of  the  state  constitution 
and  not  likely  soon  to  be  reconsidered,  woman  suffrage  is 
still  in  the  tentative  stage.  Isolated  results  both  good  and 
evil  can  readily  be  found  as  evidence  of  its  success  or  fail- 
ure, by  one  who  has  a  theory  to  formulate.  The  trouble 
is  that  such  phenomena  do  not  cover  the  whole  ground.  It 
is  probably  true  that  the  ballot  and  its  attendant  circumstan- 
ces have  increased  the  unhealthy  restlessness  of  some  wom- 
en, and  have  left  profoundly  unmoved  many  others;  but 
between  these  two  extremes  there  are  indubitably  a  large 
class  who  have  been  awakened  to  a  greater  practical  interest 
in  the  problems  confronting  the  social  body,  and  who  are 
beginning  to  tmderstand  more  of  the  patriotism  which  does 
not  talk,  but  acts. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  2^ 

Hitherto,  at  least,  the  predictions  of  extremists  have 
been  confuted,  for  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  woman  has 
neither  unsexed  her,  nor  regenerated  the  world. 


Forum.  17:  413-24.  June,  1894. 

Results  of  the  Woman  Suffrage   Movement.     Mary  A.  Greene. 

The  present  moment  marks  the  beginning  of  a  new  period 
in  the  history  of  the  agitation  for  woman  suffrage,  the  period 
of  unconstitutional  legislation.  It  is  therefore  interesting  to 
review  the  three  preceding  periods,  and  to  ascertain  just  what 
has  been  settled  and  determined  by  the  supreme  law  of  the  land. 
These  three  periods,  each  overlapping  the  other  in  point  of  time, 
are:  i.  The  period  of  the,  extension  of  full  suffrage  to  the 
women  of  certain  of  the  territories,  beginning  with  Wyoming 
in  1869.  2.  The  period  of  attempts  to  vote,  under  the  Fourteenth 
and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  3.  The  period  of  attempts  to  amend  the  state  and  national 
constitutions,  and  of  the  extension  of  school  suffrage  to  women. 
A  fourth  period,  as  mentioned  above,  is  that  of  unconstitutional 
suffrage  laws. 

First,  however,  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  experience  of 
New  Jersey  in  the  last  century.  Women  were  legal  voters  in 
New  Jersey  from  1776  to  1807.  The  Constitution  of  New  Jersey, 
adopted  July  2,  1776,  contained  the  provision  (Art.  IV)  that — 

— "all  inhabitants  of  this*  colony,  of  full  age,  who  are  worth  £50 
proclamation  money  clear  estate  in  the  same,  and  have  resided 
within  the  county  in  which  they  claim  a  vote  for  twelve  months 
immediately  preceding  the  election,  shall  be  entitled  to  vote  for 
representatives  in  council  and  assembly,  and  also  for  all  other  pub- 
lic ofticers  that  shall  be  elected  by  the  people  of  the  county  at 
large." 

Under  this  provision,  women  and  free  colored  men  of  property 

exercised  the  electoral   franchise   for  thirty  years.     The  acts   of 

the  New  Jersey  legislature  of  1790  clearly  recognize  the  women 

voters : 

"No  pers-on  shall  be  entitled  to  vote  in  any  other  town-house 
or  precinct  than  that  in  which  he  or  she  doth  actually  reside  at 
the  time  of  election."' 

But  in  ^807  the  legislature  passed  an  act  defining  the  qualifica- 
tions of  electors,  excluding  women  and  free  colored  men  by  the 


24  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

use  of  the  words  "white  male  citizens."  This  was  a  partisan 
piece  of _legislation,irn3~crearly  in  violation  of  the  constituticnal 
guarantee.  It  was  enacted  by  a  Democratic  legislature,  as  a 
political  measure,  to  disfranchise  Federalists,  as  the  women  very 
generally  voted  the  Federal  ticket.  Charges  were,  however, 
made,  that  male  voters  had  "repeated,"  by  disguising  themselves 
as  women  and  negroes,  and  on  the  strength  of  these  the  act 
was  passed.  It  was  clearly  unconstitutio,nal,  and  would  have 
been  so  declafed'l)y  the  courts,  but  it  does  not  appear  that  its 
validity  was  ever  contested.  By  the  adoption  in  1844  of  a  new 
constitution  restricting  the  ballot  to  "white  male  citizens,"  thV 
women  of  New  Jersey  were  disfranchised,  this  time  lawfully, 
by  the  supreme  law  of  the  state. 

Women  voted  in  New  Jersey  in  the  presidential  election  of 
1804,  when  Thomas  Jefferson  was  re-elected  for  a  second  term. 
Previously  to  that  election  the  presidential  electors  were  chosen 
in  New  Jersey  by  the  legislature.  In  1892  the  women  of  the 
new  state  of  W3'oming  participated  in  a  presidential  election 
which  resulted  in  the  choice  of  Grover  Cleveland,  who  was  the 
first  president  since  Jefferson  to  be  elected  by  the  aid  of  women's 
votes. 

The  recognition  of  woman's  right  to  the  ballot  in  New 
Jersey  was  due  to  the  influence  of  a  preacher  of  the  Society  of 
Friends,  a  member  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1776. 
It  is  an  isolated  instance  in  our  country,  although  the  common 
law  of  England  had  always  recognized  the  right  of  a  woman 
property-owner  to  vote.  The  right,  however,  was  not  generally 
exercised.  Its  modern  recognition  by  the  passage  of  statute 
laws  and  the  adoption  of  constitutional  amendments  dates,  in 
most  part,  from  the  agitation  of  advocates  of  woman  suffrage, 
which  first  found  formal  expression  in  the  woman's-rights  con- 
vention at  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  in  1850.  The  first  endur- 
ing result  of  this  agitation  was  the  adoption  by  Kansas,  in  1861, 
of  school  suffrage  for  women ;  but  many  years  elapsed  before 
school-suffrage  laws  were  adopted  in  other  states,  and  so  the 
school  suffrage  period  is  chronologically  subsequent  to  other 
periods  in  the  legal  history  of  the  movement. 

Our  first  period,  clearly  marked  in  the  annals  of  the  courts, 
is  that  of  the  extension  of  full  suffrage  to  the  women  of  some 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  25 

of  4he_territories ;  namely,  Wyoming,  Utah,  and  Washington. 
A  territory,  unUke  a  state,  has  no  constitution,  but  it  derives  its 
frame  of  government  and  power  to  make  laws  from  an  act  of 
Congress.  This  Organic  Act  for  the  regulation  of  the  territorial 
governments  provides  that,  at  the  first  election  in  any  territory, 
male  citizens  of  the  age  of  twenty-one  years  shall  vote,  but — 

— "at  all  subsequent  elections  .  .  .  the  qualifications  of  voters 
and  for  holding  office  shall  be  such  as  may  be  prescribed  by  the 
legislative   as-sembly   of    each    territory," — 

— subject,  nevertheless,  to  certain  specified  restrictions,  of  which 
the  first,  and  the  only  one  having  a  bearing  on  woman's  vote,  is 
as  follows : 

"The  right  of  suffrage  and  of  holding  office  shall  be  exer- 
cised only  by  citizens  of  the  United  States  above  the  age  of  twen- 
ty-one, or  persons  above  that  age  who  have  declared  their  in- 
tention  to  become  such  citizens." 

Under  this  Organic  Act,  the  first  legislative  assembly  of  Wy^- 
ming,  iii_  1869,  gave  to  women  the  right  to  vote  and  to  hold  office 
upon  the  same  terms  as  men.  An  effort  to  repeal  this  statute,  in 
1781,  failed,  and  from  1869  to  the  present  time  the  women  of 
Wyoming  have  had  full  political  rights  equally  with  men,  rights 
now  secured  by  Article  VI  of  the  state  constitution  ratified 
November  5,  1889. 

In  18/O  the  territory  of  Utah,  by  legislation,  also  extended 
to  its  women  citizens  the  electoral  franchise ;  but  in  j[882,  by 
an  act  of  Congress,  polygamists  of  both  sexes  were  disfranchised, 
and  in  1887  all  Utah  women  were  disfranchised  by  the  Anti- 
Polygamy  Act,  commonly  called  the  Edmunds  Bill.  '  It  is 
s.ettled  by  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  that  the  territorial  legislatures  have  power,  by  force  of 
the  Organic  Act,  to  confer  the  elective  franchise  upon  female 
as  well  as  male  citizens.  .  This  is  recognized  in  the  cases  en- 
titled Murphy  v.  Ramsey,  114  U.  S.  15,  decided  in  1885,  which 
were  appeals  from  the  boards  of  commissioners  of  elections  in 
Utah.  Certain  men  and  women  had  had  their  votes  challenged  on 
the  ground  that  they  were  living  in  polygamy.  The  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  found  that  two  of  the  women  were 
not  living  in  polygamy,  and  that  consequently  their  votes  had 
been  illegally  rejected.  In  1890  the  same  court  again  construed 
the  suffrage  clause  of  the  Organic  Act  in  Davis  v.  Season,  133 


26  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

U.  S.  sss,  known  as  the  Idaho  Test-Oath  case,  and  expressly 
stated  that — 

— "these  limitations  [of  age,  citizens-hip,  and  residence]  are  the 
only  ones  placed  upon  "tTie'  authority  of  territorial  legislatures 
against  granting  the  right  of  suffrage  or  of  holding  office.  They 
have  the  power,  therefore,  to  prescribe  any  reasonable  qualifica- 
tions of  voters  and  for  holding  office,  not  inconsistent  with  the 
above  limitations." 

This  case  decided  that  polygamlsts  may  lawfully  be  excluded 
from  the  franchise,  while  the  former  case  (Murphy  v.  Ramsey) 
recognizes  the  right  of   Congress  to  disfranchise  polygamists. 

In  1883  the  territorial  legislature  of  Washington  passed  an  act 
entitled  "An  act  to  amend  section  3050,  chapter  238,  of  the  Code 
of  Washington,"  but  its  real  purpose  and  actual  effect  was  to 
extend  full  suffrage  to  women.  In  1877,  in  the  case  of  Harlan 
V.  Territory,  3  Wash.  131,  a  doubt  was  thrown  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  territory  upon  the  validity  of  the  law,  as  defective 
in  its  title ;  for  by  act  of  Congress  each  law  passed  in  any 
territory  must  "embrace  but  one  object,  which  shall  be  expressed 
in  its  title.'*  From  this  opinion  of  a  majority  of  the  court  Chief 
Justice  Greene  totally  dissented,  but  in  1888  a  new  chief  justice 
was  elected  to  take  his  place,  and  the  decision  in  Harlan's  case 
was  re-affirmed  in  two  more  cases.  These  were  all  cases  of 
criminal  prosecutions  against  keepers  of  gambling  and  other 
disreputable  resorts,  and  conviction  was  secured  by  a  jury  com- 
posed in  part  of  women.  The  prisoners  appealed,  on  the  ground 
that  married  women,  living  with  their  husbands,  were  not 
eligible  to  serve  as  jurors.  Immediately  after  the  decisions  of 
the  court  in  1888,  the  legislature  re-enacted  the  woman-suffrage 
law,  entitling  it  "An  act  prescribing  the  qualifications  of  electors 
in  the  territory  of  Washington/'  but  added  a  proviso  that  women 
shall  not  serve  as  jurors.  This  act  was  approved  by  the  governor 
January  18,  1888.  But  the  hostile  court  in  August  of  the  same 
year  rendered  a  decision  in  the  election  case  of  Bloomer  v. 
Todd,  3  Wash.  599,  to  the  effect  that  the  law  of  January  18,  1888, 
is  in  conflict  with  the  Organic  Act  of  Congress  for  the  estab- 
lishing of  governments  in  the  territories,  which,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  territorial  court  of  Washington,  restricts  the  suffrage  to 
male  citizens  only.  Of  course  this  decision  is  in  direct  conflict 
with  the  opinion  of  the   Supreme   Court  of  the   United   States, 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  27 

which  is  the  highest  authorit}^  in  the  land,  and  would  have  been 
reversed  had  the  case  of  Bloomer  v.  Todd  been  brought  before 
that  court.  But  at  that  time  the  controversy  assumed  a  new 
aspect  by  the  application  of  Washington  for  admission  as  a 
State.  Separate  articles  to  the  constitution  were  framed,  ex- 
tending full  political  rights  to  women,  to  be  voted  upon  apart 
from  the  body  of  the  constitution.  In  1889  the  constitution  was 
ratified,  but  the  separate  articles  were  rejected.  Hence  the  only 
permanent  result  of  this  agitation  has  been  the  enfranchisement 
of  the  women  of  Wyoming. 

The  second  period  was  inaugurated  by  the  adoption  of  the 
Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendments  to  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States.  These  were  intended  to  protect  the  negroes 
of  the  South  by  guaranteeing  the  privileges  and  immunities  of 
citizens,  and  forbidding  the  abridgement  of  rights,  especially  those 
of  suffrage. 

The  advocates  of  woman  suffrage,  however,  thought  that 
these  amendments  might  have  opened  a  door  to  the  polls  for 
women,  and  that  it  would  be  worth  while  to  try  to  vote,  to  see. 
if  their  view  of  the  case  would  be  sustained  by  the  courts. 
Consequently  in  various  sections  of  the  country  attempts  were 
made  by  women  to  compel  the  registrars  of  elections  to  register 
them  as  legal  voters,  and,  upon  refusal,  the  cases  were  appealed 
to  the  courts,  the  plaintiffs  invoking  the  aid  of  the  constitutional 
amendments  above  cited.  This  began  in  1871  or  1872.  The 
most  famous  case- is  that  of  United  States  v.  Anthony,  11  Blatchf. 
C.  Ct.  200,  decided  in  1873.  Miss  Anthony  was  indicted  and 
found  guilty  of  a  criminal  offence  against  the  United  States  for 
knowingly  voting  for  congressmen  in  New  York  without  having 
a  lawful  right  to  vote,  which  offence  was  punishable,  under 
act  of  Congress,  by  a  heavy  fine  or  imprisonment. 

Women  in  Pennsylvania,  California,  Missouri,  and  the  District 
of  Columbia  sued  the  election  officers  for  refusal  to  accept  their 
votes  or  to  allow  them  to  register.  The  uniform  decision  in 
each  court  was  that  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  Amendment 
had  in  no  way  changed  or  abridged  the  right  of  each  state  to 
restrict  the  suffrage  to  males,  but  that  they  applied  only  to  the 
freedmen  of  color  and  to  existing  rights  and  privileges. 

This'  phase   of   the   controversy   was    finally   disposed    of   by 


28  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Mrs.  Minor's  appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
from  the  decision  of  the  Missouri  court  against  her  claim  to  be 
registered  as  a  voter.  The  opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court  is  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  decisions  of  the  state  courts  cited  above,  and 
has  established  the  fact  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  in  its  present  form,  neither  grants  nor  forbids  the  elective 
franchise  to  women,  but  leaves  each  state  free  to  admit  or  exclude 
them  as  it  sees  fit ;  that,  although  women  are  citizens  in  the  sense 
of  being  members  of  the  nation,-  they  are  not,  therefore,  of 
necessity  voters,  for  the  right  of  suffrage  is  not  co-extensive  with 
citizenship,  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  the  early  history  of 
the  country  most  of  the  states  limited  the  suffrage  to  those 
citizens  who  possessed  a  certain  amount  of  landed  property;  nor 
was  it  co-extensive  with  citizenship  at  the  time  of  the  adoption 
of  the  Fourteenth  Amendment.  That  amendment  does  not  con- 
fer additional  privileges  or  immunities  of  citizenship,  but  simply 
guarantees  the  protection  of  the  citizen  in  the  privileges  he  al- 
ready possessed. 

By  this  decision,  therefore,  it  is  settled  that  the  separate 
states  of  the  Union  alone  possess  the  power  to  admit  or  exclude 
women  to  political  rights,  and  that  the  national  government  has 
no  power  either  to  admit  or  exclude  the  women  of  the  states, 
unless  the  states  see  fit  to  surrender  their  power  to  the  United 
States.  This,  of  course,  the  states  can  at  any  time  do,  in  the 
way  in  which  they  may  surrender  other  powers ;  namely,  by  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  ratified  by 
the  legislatures  of  three-fourths  of  the  states.  Such  an  amend- 
ment has  frequently  been  presented  to  Congress  and  has  once 
been  favorably  reported  by  a  Congressional  committee,  but  no 
further  action  has  as  yet  been  taken.  Meanwhile  each  state  retains 
its  right  to  admit  or  exclude  its  women  citizens  by  virtue  of  the 
Tenth  Amendment  to  the  United  States  Constitution : 

"The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Con- 
stitution, nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  states,  are  reserved  to  the 
states   respectively,    or   to   the   people." 

This  judicial  ultimatum  of  the  supreme  authority  of  the  na- 
tion caused  the  espousers  of  woman's  political  freedom  to  turn 
to  the  state  governments  for  help,  and  led  to  the  constitutional- 
amendment  and  school-suffrage  period.     Attempts  to  amend  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  29 

state  constitutions  came  naturally  in  order.  No  such  attempt 
has  as  yet  been  successful.  In  Michigan  in  1874,  in  Ohio  in 
1875,  in  Nebraska  in  1881,  in  Oregon  in  1882,  and  in  Rhode 
Island  in  1887,  such  proposed  amendments  were  rejected  by  the 
voters.  The  rejection  of  the  separate  articles  in  favor  of  woman 
suffrage  at  the  time  the  state  constitution  of  Washington  was 
adopted  in  1889  has  already  been  mentioned. 

Two  of  the  newer  states,  Colorado  and  South  Dakota,  placed 
in  their  constitutions  an  article  requiring  the  legislature  at  its 
first  session  to  pass  an  act  extending  full  suffrage  to  women, 
such  act  to  have  the  force  of  a  law  only  upon  ratification  by  the 
voters  at  the  next  election  immediately  following  the  passage  of 
the  act,  and  in  case  of  its  rejection,  the  legislature  is  authorized 
to  pass  such  an  act  at  any  subsequent  session,  to  take  effect  upon 
ratification  by  the  voters  as  provided  in  the  first  instance.  In 
Colorado  in  1877,  and  in  South  Dakota  in  1890,  the  voters  re- 
jected the  woman-suffrage  bill,  but  in  November,  1893,  i"  the 
state  of  Colorado,  full  suffrage  was  duly  extended  to  women 
by  act  of  the  legislature  and  subsequent  ratification.  In  Kansas, 
in  1887,  by  an  act  of  the  legislature  without  a  constitutional 
amendment,  women  were  empowered  to  vote  at  all  municipal 
elections  and  to  hold  all  municipal  offices. 

In  most  of  our  states  the  original  constitution  did  not  attempt 
to  regulate  matters  relating  to  the  public  schools.  Consequently 
the  legislatures  of  such  states  could  constitutionally  pass  acts 
extending  the  ballot  on  such  matters  to  women.  Nineteen  states 
and  territories  have  passed  such  laws,  of  unquestioned  validity. 
These  are  Kentucky,  in  1845;  Kansas,  1861 ;  Michigan,  1875; 
Colorado,  1876;  Minnesota,  1877;  New  Hampshire  and  Oregon, 
1878;  Massachusetts,  1879;  Vermont,  1880;  Nebraska,  1883: 
Washington,  1886;  North  and  South  Dakota,  Idaho,  Arizona, 
Montana,  and  New  Jersey,  1887 ;  Connecticut,  1893 ;  and  New 
York,  in  respect  to  the  original  New  York  law  of  1880.  In 
Kansas,  Colorado,  Minnesota,  Washington,  North  and  South 
Dakota,  Idaho,  and  Montana  the  right-  is  guaranteed  in  the  con- 
stitution itself. 

The  Wisconsin  law  of  1885  was  doubted,  not  as  to  its  con- 
stitutionality, but  because  of  its  defective  provision  for  the  cast- 
ing of  women's  ballots.  This  defect  was  cured,  in  part  at  least, 
by  the  Australian  ballot  law  of  1891. 


30  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

The  new  state  of  Montana  has  a  constitutional  provision  (Art. 
IX,  sec.  12)  extending  to  women  taxpayers  the  right  to  vote 
equally  with  men  taxpayers  "upon  all  questions  submitted  to  the 
vote  of  the  taxpayers  of  the  state  or  any  political  division  there- 
of."     . 

It  will  be  observed  that  while  the  school-suffrage  laws  of 
Kentucky  (limited  originally  to  widows,,  having  children  of 
school  age)  and  of  Kansas  are  of  early  date,  the  great  bulk  of 
this  legislation  is  subsequent  to  1874,  when  Chief  Justice  Waite's 
opinion  in  Minor  v.  Happersett  indicated  the  true  line  of  effort. 

There  are  several  instances  of  statutes,  ordinances,  and  mu- 
nicipal charters  which  allow  some  form  of  suffrage  to  women, 
within  a  limited  territory,  not  covering  an  entire  state.  Such  are : 
the  statute  extending  school  suffrage  to  the  women  of  the  city 
of  Wilmington,  Delaware;  that  allowing  the  women  taxpayers 
of  Cooperstown,  N.  Y.,  to  vote  on  local  improvements ;  the  occa- 
sional special  laws  submitting  a  vote  on  local  improvements  to 
the  taxpayers  of  a  city  or  town,  irrespective  of  sex ;  and  the  pro- 
vision of  law  in  Arkansas  and  Missouri  allowing  women  to  sign 
petitions  for  or  against  the  granting  of  liquor  licenses.  All  these, 
however,  are  limited  either  to  special  occasions  or  specified  locali- 
ties, and  in  themselves  are  merely  straws  on  the  current  indicat- 
ing the  direction  in  which  it  is  setting. 

We  come  now  to  the  present  phase  of  the  controversy,  the 
period  of  unconstitutional  suffrage  laws.  In  Illinois  the  law  of 
1891  conferring  school  suffrage  upon  women  has  been  declared 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  that  state  to  be  in  part  unconstitutional  ; 
the  New  York  law  of  1892  allowing  women  to  vote  for  school 
commissioners  is  held  by  the  Court  of  Appeals  to  be  unconstitu- 
tional ;  the  municipal-suffrage  law  of  Michigan  of  1893  has  met 
the  same  fate ;  and  the  governor  of  California  in  1893  vetoed  the 
school-suffrage  bill  on  the  ground  of  its  unconstitutionality. 
Warned  by  these  faux  pas  in  other  states,  the  Massachusetts 
legislature  adopts  as  its  motto  Festina  lente,  and  pauses  to  ask 
the  Supreme  Judicial  Court  whether  it  would  be  constitutional 
to  pass  a  municipal-suffrage  bill  which  is  conditioned  upon  a 
ratification  by  the  voters  at  the  polls  to  become  a  law. 

In  view  of  the  passage  of  so  many  unconstitutional  laws  we 
may  almost  believe  that  the  schoolboy  gave  a"  correct  definition 


WOAIAX    SUFFRAGE  31 

when  he  said,  '^The  Constitution  is  the  part  of  the  book  at  the 
end  which  nobody  reads."  The  governor  of  California  read 
his  constitution,  however,  and  read  it  aright.  That  voluminous 
document,  regarded  by  Professor  Bryce  as  a  type  of  the  newer 
constitutions  which  narrow  the  competence  of  the  legislature  and 
restrict  its  power  to  legislate,  is  copied  in  full  in  his  ''American 
Commonwealth."  Article  IX  of  that  instrument,  entitled  Educa- 
tion, provides  for  the  election  of  a  superintendent  of  public  in- 
struction and  of  county  superintendents  of  schools,  and  prescribes 
the  qualifications  of  electors  for  such  offices.  The  school-suf- 
frage bill,  enabling  women  to  vote  at  any  school  election  and  to 
hold  any  school  office,  was  clearly  in  excess  of  the  powers  of  the 
legislature,   and  the  governor  very  properly  vetoed   it. 

The  difficulty  with  the  New  York  and  Illinois  statutes  was 
that  the  school-suffrage  act  authorized  women  to  vote  for  school 
commissioner  (In  New  York)  or  county  superintendent  of 
schools  (in  Illinois),  officers  who  are  specifically  named  and 
provided  for  in  the  constitution  of  each  state,  and  in  consequence 
they  can  only  be  voted  for  by  electors  possessing  the  qualifica- 
tions enumerated  in  the  constitution ;  that  is,  by  "male"  electors. 
To  confer  upon  women  the  right  to  vote  for  these  officers  the 
constitution  must  be  amended. 

In  Michigan,  the  municipal  suffrage  law  was  held  uncon- 
stitutional on  the  ground  that  the  constitution  of  Michigan  gives 
the  legislature  no  power  to  change  the  qualifications  of  electors 
as  prescribed  by  the  constitution,  "for  all  elections." 

The  court  distinguishes  between  school  elections  and  municipal 
elections.  The  former,  with  all  matters  relating  to  the  public 
schools,  are  by  the  constitution  of  Michigan  given  entirely  into 
the  power  of  the  legislature  for  regulation,  which  the'refore  has 
power  to  extend  to  women  the  right  to  vote  at  school  elections. 
But  to  enable  women  to  vote  at  other  elections,  a  constitutional 
amendment  is  necessary. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  older  constitutions  of  our  states 
do  not.  as  a  rule,  deal  with  the  school  system,  while  the  con- 
stitutions of  our  new  states  and  the  newer  constitutions  of  older 
states  do  include  the  schools  in  their  specific  provisions.  Indeed, 
these  newer  constitutions  contain  a  mass  of  ordinary  law  on  mat- 
ters which   formerly  were  left  to  the  legislatures,   such   as,   for 


32  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

instance,  education,  the  property  rights  of  married  women,  cor- 
poration and  railroad  law,  state  and  municipal  indebtedness,  and 
the  mode  of  choosing  minor  officials.  But  the  older  constitu- 
tions— as,  for  instance,  that  of  Massachusetts,  adopted  in  1780 
and  still  in  force — give  to  the  legislatures  the  widest  possible 
power  of  law-making,  limited  only  by  a  few  express  provisions 
in  the  body  of  the  constitutions.  Consequently,  in  Massachu- 
setts, the  legislature  has  the  power  to  extend  municipal  suffrage 
to  women,  and  a  statute  conditioned  for  its  validity  upon  a 
ratification  by  the  people  at  the  polls  would  be  unconstitutional. 
This  is  the  ancient  theory  of  the  relation  of  the  legislature 
to  the  people,  as  shown  in  the  colonial  charters.  But  the  tendency 
of  our  times  is  to  regard  the  legislature  as  a  mere — 

' — "body  of  agents,  exercising  delegated  and  restricted  powers,  and 
obliged  to  recur  to  the  sovereign  people  (by  asking  for  a  consti- 
tutional amendment)  when  it  seeks  to  extend  these  powers'  in 
any  particular   direction." 

Such  being  the  case,  it  is  indispensable  that  the  advocates  and 
framers  of  a  bill  for  the  extension  of  the  suffrage,  or  indeed 
for  many  other  kinds  of  legislation,  should  be  perfectly  informed 
as  to  the  legal  construction  and  effect  of  the  relation  of  the 
legislature  to  the  constitution  in  the  state  where  the  bill  is  to  be 
debated.  It  will  become  more  and  more  difficult  for  legislatures 
to  enact  a  law  extending  the  suffrage  to  women ;  for,  as  a  rule, 
it  will  be  found  that,  the  later  the  date  of  a  state  constitution,  the 
smaller  the  probability  that  the  legislature  has  power  to  do  this. 
Consequently  the  only  sure  way  to  extend  the  electoral  fran- 
chise to  women  will  be  by  the  adoption  of  an  amendment  to  the 
Constitution,  or  by  securing  a  specific  provision  when  a  new 
constitution  is  framed ;  in  other  words,  by  recourse  to  the  ex- 
pression of  the  sovereign  will  of  the  people  as  embodied  in  the 
supreme  law,  the  Constitution. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  add  that  the  adoption  of  a  con- 
stitutional amendment,  accomplished  as  it  is  by  popular  vote 
at  a  general  election,  is  the  surest  proof  that  the  community  as 
a  whole  desires  its  women  citizens  to  vote.  Public  sentiment  will 
therefore  enforce  the  law,  and  two  chief  objections  to  the 
political  enfranchisement  of  women  will  be  removed, — first,  that 
the  male  citizens  of  the  community  do  not  want  w^omen  to  vote, 
and  secondly,  that  the  women  citizens  of  the  community  do  not 


WOMAN    SUFFRAGE  33 

want  to  vote  and  will  not  do  so  when  the  privilege  is  extended 
to  them. 

The  legal  results  of  the  agitation  for  woman  suffrage  mark 
the  successive  stages  of  the  popular  demand.  Until  the  era  of 
school-suffrage  legislation,  the  question  excited  little  interest 
among  the  people  at  large,  and  scarcely  more  among  women  in 
general  than  among  men.  Indeed,  the  effect  upon  the  popular 
mind  of  the  determined  attempts  to  cast  a  ballot  by  certain 
women  already  mentioned  in  this  article  was  unfavorable  to  the 
popular  advancement  of  the  cause,  the  attempts  being  looked  upon 
by  the  general  public  as  an  exhibition  of  determined  defiance  of 
existing  laws,  rather  that  what  they  really  in  most  instances 
were ;  that  is,  a  necessary  preliminary  step  to  bring  a  test  case 
before  the  courts,  to  obtain  a  legal  decision  for  or  against  the 
actual  existence  of  woman's  right  to  the  ballot. 

The  proposal  to  extend  suffrage  to  women  on  school  matters 
was  so  conservative  and  so  evidently  one  within  the  limits  of 
"woman's  sphere,"  even  in  the  view  of  those  who  would  bound 
the  sphere  by  the  smallest  circumference,  that  it  won  general 
approval  and  little  difficulty  was  experienced  in  passing  through 
many  state  legislatures  bills  thus  extending  the  suffrage.  The 
year  1887  shows  the  highwater  mark  of  popular  interest  in  this 
phase  of  the  question,  no  less  than  five  states  and  territories 
having  passed  school-suffrage  laws. 

But  the  failure  of  the  attempts,  during  this  same  period,  to 
extend  full  suffrage  to  women  by  constitutional  amendment, 
shows  that  popular  interest  was  not  aroused  sufficiently  to 
create  a  demand  for  the  reform  by  the  voters  at  the  polls.  It  is 
true  that  only  the  men  of  the  community  were  able  to  vote  upon 
the  question,  but  nevertheless  it  seems  to  be  true  that  when  a 
majority  of  the  w^omen  of  a  community  desire  and  demand  the 
ballot,  it  will  be  given  them  by  the  votes  of  the  men.  This  was 
the  case  in  Colorado,  where,  as  stated  above,  at  the  general 
election  of  1893,  the  male  electors  of  the  state,  by  a  handsome 
majority,  voted  in  favor  of  the  law  extending  full  suffrage  to 
women.  The  women  of  Colorado,  by  their  action  at  the  spring 
elections  of  1894,  have  proved  that  they  intend  to  make  full 
nse  of  the  power  extended  to  them. 

While  it  seems  to  be  true  that  women  have  not  very  gen- 


34  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

erally  availed  themselves  of  the  right  to  vote  upon  school  matters, 
nevertheless  the  extension  of  this  right  has  served  to  arouse  the 
interest  of  many  previously  indifferent ;  and  the  stand  taken  by 
that  vast  organization,  the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union, 
in  favor  of  aggressive  action  for  the  granting  of  the  electoral 
franchise  to  women,  has  within  the  last  ten  or  a  dozen  years 
immensely  augmented  the  ranks  of  the  woman-suffrage  agitators. 
Within  a  very  few  years  the  women  of  the  southern  states  have 
awakened  to  an  active  interest  in  the  question ;  but  the  move- 
ment is  too  recent,  and  too  much  opposed  to  existing  southern 
views  of  woman's  sphere,  to  have  much  political  weight  as  yet, 
although  permanent  results  have  been  secured  in  Kentucky  by  a 
recent  law  extending  the  property  rights  of  married  women,  thus 
placing  that  state  in  line  with  most  of  the  other  states  of  the 
Union  in  this  respect. 

In  our  older  states,  the  woman-suffrage  movement  has  not 
hitherto  enUsted  the  interest  or  sympathies  of  women  who  are 
prominent  in  fashionable  society,  a  few  individuals  excepted. 
''Society"  en  masse  has  looked  askance  at  the  whole  matter. 
But  now,  in  New  York,  political  equaHty  has  become  fashionable, 
and  ladies  of  wealth  and  position  are  enthusiastically  working  to 
obtain  a  recognition  of  woman's  right  to  the  ballot  in  the  new 
constitution  to  be  framed  for  the  state  by  a  convention  now  in 
session.  Women  are  also  eligible  to  membership  in  this  con- 
vention, by  a  law  passed  in  1893.  Another  class  of  women  who 
are  interesting  themselves  in  the  cause  of  women's  enfranchise- 
ment are  the  students  and  professors  in  some  of  our  colleges. 
Wellesley,  for  instance,  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  has  re- 
cently put  itself  on  record  as  in  favor  of  the  movement. 

In  brief,  the  sentiment  is  now  so  strong,  and  the  supporters 
of  the  cause  are  so  numerous,  that  politicians  begin  to  recognize 
it  as  a  factor  not  to  be  ignored.  Every  year  petitions  and  bills 
pour  in  upon  our  state  legislatures  for  the  extension  of  some 
form  of  suffrage  to  women,  and  in  many  legislatures  the  matter 
has  reached  a  stage  requiring  the  appointment  of  a  committee  on 
woman  suffrage  as  one  of  the  regular  standing  committees.  Al- 
though in  many  states  the  woman-suffrage  bill  annually  passes 
the  lower  branch  of  the  legislature  only  to  be  killed  in  the  upper, 
the  majority  of  opponents  decreases,  and  the  favorable  minority 
increases,  year  by  year. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  35 

The  political  parties  that  have  openly  espoused  woman's 
claim  are  chiefly  those  with  socialistic  platforms,  such  as  the 
Greenback  and  Populist  parties.  The  Prohibition  party  has 
always  been  steadily  in  favor  of  the  movement,  but  the  two  great 
national  parties,  the  Republicans  and  the  Democrats,  have  been 
shy  of  the  matter.  The  national  Republican  platform  of  1876 
contained  the  following  plank:  "The  honest  demands  of  women 
for  additional  rights,  privileges,  and  immunities,  should  be  treated 
with  respectful  consideration;"  but  since  that  time  silence  has 
been  maintained.  State  parties  have  from  time  to  time  lent 
their  aid  for  or  against  state  legislation  in  the  various  forms  of 
the  controversy,  but  it  has  not  yet  become  a  national  issue. 

It  is  impossible  to  predict  the  probable  result  of  the  pending 
campaign  in  any  given  state.  Still  more  impossible  is  it  to  pre- 
dict, because  one  state  extends  full  suffrage  to  women,  that  any 
other  state  is  ready  to  do  so.  Public  sentiment  varies  greatly 
in  the  various  sections  of  the  country.  We  have  absolutely  no 
means  of  judging  of  the  sentiments  of  all  the  women  of  the 
country  on  the  subject,  because  they  have  no  means  of  giving 
a  formal  expression  to  their  convictions  in  a  way  to  carry 
equal  weight  with  the  votes  of  the  men  at  the  polls.  Their  views 
are  indirectly  reflected  in  the  opinions  and  votes  of  the  men, 
and  this  simply  brings  us  back  to  the  point  that  Wyoming  and 
Colorado  are  the  only  states  where  full  suffrage  for  women  is  an 
accomplished  fact,  and  there  alone  has  there  been  sufficient 
momentum  to  carry  to  full  fruition  the  efforts  of  the  agitators. 

Harper's  Bazar.  33:  220-1.  May  26,  1900. 

Woman  Suffrage  in  Idaho.     Frank  Steunenberg. 

I  have  been  asked  to  give  some  practical  observations  on 
the  system  in  Idaho  by  which  women  vote  and  hold  ofiice,  and 
I  comply  willingly,  feeling  that  it  may  serve  to  overcome  to 
some  extent  misapprehensions  which  have  arisen  as  to  the  re- 
sults of  woman's  participation  in  public  affairs.  In  doing  this 
there  is  no  purpose  to  discuss  the  theory  or  justice  of  woman 
suffrage,  but  to  present  the  practical  aspect  of  the  subject  be- 
cause of  actual  experience  with  the  system  in  Idaho. 


36  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

The  state  of  Idaho  adopted  woman  suffrage  in  1896,  by 
means  of  a  constitutional  amendment,  first  passed  in  the  Legis- 
lature in  1895,  and  then  submitted  to  the  people  (male  electors) 
for  final  determination.  The  origin  of  the  movement  in  the 
Legislature  was  spontaneous,  and  was  not,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  the  result  of  any  particular  or  prolonged  outside  propa- 
ganda by  persons  eager  to  spread  the  doctrine  a,nd  practice  of 
suffrage  for  women.  In  a  community  of  liberal  and  progressive 
ideas  the  time  seemed  ripe  for  giving  to  women  an  equal  share 
with  men  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs ;  without  special  effort, 
and  with  practically  no  opposition,  the  Legislature  adopted  the 
Joint  Resolution  submitting  the  question  to  the  people.  Once  this 
had  been  done,  the  women  throughout  the  state  were  stimulated 
to  exertion;  systematic  organization  was  perfected  in  the  state 
and  counties,  and  an  active  campaign  inaugurated.  Attention 
was  first  directed  to  the  various  party  conventions,  and  one  after 
another  the  Democratic,  Republican,  Populist,  Silver-Republican, 
and  Prohibitioii  party  conventions  endorsed  the  suffrage  amend- 
ment. With  all  parties  united  and  endorsing,  there  was  no 
organized  opposition,  and  the  opponents  of  the  measure  con- 
fined their  activities  to  voting  against  it.  The  vote  occuri;ed 
in  November,  1896,  at  the  same  time  that  presidential  electors 
were  chosen,  and  the  result  was  overwhelmingly  favorable  to 
the  suffrage  amendment.  About  30,000  votes  were  polled  at 
that  election,  the  amendment  vote  being  somewhat  below  that  on 
other  issues ;  the  ratio  of  votes  on  the  amendment  was  approxi- 
mately two  to  one  in  its  favor. 

This  placed  in  our  constitution  and  in  our  statute-books  a 
suffrage  law  of  the  most  absolute  and  sweeping  character.  It 
placed  both  sexes  on  an  exact  equality,  not  only  so  far  as  voting 
is  concerned,  but  also  in  holding  office.  There  is  no  limitation  of 
the  suffrage  to  school  and  certain  other  public  functions  in 
which  women  are  specially  concerned,  as  is  the  case  in  some 
states,  but  the  right  to  vote  is  universal,  for  municipal  and 
county  officers,  state  officers,  senators  and  representatives  in 
Congress,  state  legislators,  and  for  presidential  electors.  The 
same  equal  privilege  is  open  to  hold  office  under  the  state, 
county,  or  municipality  government. 

The  first  general  election  to  come  after  the  adoption  of  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  yj 

amendment  was  held  in  1898,  and  at  that  time  one  woman, 
Miss  Permeal  French,  was  elected  on  the  Democratic  ticket  to. 
the  office  of  State  Snperintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  and 
three  women,  a  Democrat,  a  Populist,  and  a  Republican,  were 
elected  to  the  Legislature.  Miss  French  is  a  woman  of  superior 
ability  and  intelligence,  and  it  is  conceded  by  all  that  she  is 
the  best  officer  in  that  capacity  the  state  has  ever  had.  The 
place  she  occupies  is  o,ne  of  unusual  importance  with  us,  as  the 
state  superintendent  of  instruction  prepares  the  course  of  study 
for  all  the  schools  of  the  state,  administers  the  liberal  and  ad- 
vanced system  by  which  every  school  in  the  state  has  the  same 
course  of  study  and  the  same  text-books,  furnished  free  by  the 
state,  directs  the  general  execution  of  the  compulsory  school 
law,  under  which  every  child  of  school  age — between  five  and 
eighteen  years — must  attend  school  at  least  six  months  in  every 
year ;  and,  in  addition  to  these  educational  duties,  has  general 
charge  of  the  education  of  the  deaf,  dumb,  and  blind  children. 
To  carry  on  these  various  branches  of  public  work.  Miss  French 
has  an  office  at  the  state  capitol,  with  a.  staff  of  assistants,  and 
the  business  is  performed  in  the  most  systematic  and  satisfactory 
manner.  Of  the  three  women  in  the  Legislature  it  may  also  be 
said  that  they  made  most  acceptable  public  officers,  serving  with 
ability  and  success. 

In  every  case  the  women  were  regularly  nominated  at  con- 
ventions of  the  several  parties  to  which  they  belonged.  A  num- 
ber of  others  were  nominated  and  elected  to  county  offices.  In 
some  cases  the  women  placed  in  nomination  were  defeated  at  the 
polls,  showing  that  they  took  the  same  chances  of  success  or 
failure  as  the  men.  The  fact  that  a  candidate  was  a  woman 
made  ,no  difference  for  or  against  her,  the  support  being  given 
with  regard  to  the  fitness  of  candidates  rather  than  on  any 
sentimental  or  emotional  grounds.  In  theory  it  had  been  asserted 
that  the  gallantry  of  men  would  lead  them  to  vote  for  women 
candidates,  just  as  they  would  yield  to  women  the  seats  of  a 
•crowded  car,  but  in  practice  it  was  found  that  there  was  no  such 
■departure  from  the  usual  healthy  rivalry  between  candidates. 
The  only  vital  questions  at  the  polls  were  those  of  merit  and 
party. 

Our  experience  has  been  similarly  satisfactory  in  the  orderly 


38  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

conduct  at  polling-booths,  and  the  entire  absence  of  those  un- 
•seemly  scenes  and  incidents  which  it  had  been  feared  might  at- 
tend the  presence  of  women  at  the  voting-places.  The  women 
not  only  go  to  the  polls  to  deposit  their  ballots,  but  they  are 
there  to  electioneer,  just  as  are  men;  they  work  in  behalf  of 
candidates  they  consider  best  fitted  for  the  public  service,  run 
carriages  to  bring  in  the  voters,  men  and  women,  exactly  like 
citizens  older  in"  suffrage  rights.  AH  this,  however,  is  carried 
on  in  a  most  orderly  and  proper  manner,  and  excites  no  more 
comment  in  the  case  of  the  women  than  it  does  in  that  of  the 
men.  We  are  fortunate  in  having  the  Australian  ballot  law,  and 
this,  together  with  a  law  closing  all  saloons  on  election  day, 
insures  an  orderly  procedure,  without  crowding  about  the 
booths,  and  with  very  little  drunkenness. 

The  suggestion  may  be  made  that  this  activity  of  women 
in  public  affairs  has  operated  to  draw  them  away  from  their 
homes  and  from  the  usual  domestic  avocations,  a  suggestion  that 
our  experience  amply  disproves.  In  Idaho  women  are  to-day 
the  same  loving  wives,  kind  mothers,  and  capable  home-man- 
agers that  they  have  always  been.  Nor  has  there  been  the  least 
belittling  of  the  sex  in  the  eyes  of  the  men,  nor  any  falling  off 
in  that  tenderness  and  respect  which  men  universally  accord 
to  women.  There  is  not  the  slightest  interruption  of  family 
ties.  Husband  and  wife  may  vote  the  same  way,  or  the  hus- 
band may  vote  one  way  and  the  wife  another.  Whether  they 
vote  together  or  oppositely  excites  no  interest  and  no  animosity,, 
although  naturally  families  have  the  same  party  affiliations. 
As  the  system  has  not  operated  to  take  women  from  their  homes,, 
so  too  it  has  not  tended  to  make  them  in  any  way  masculine. 

Concerning  the  extent  to  which  women  in  Idaho  exercise  the 
rights  given  them  by  the  law,  it  has  been  found  to  be  very  gen- 
eral. In  1898,  with  women  voting,  the  total  vote  was  about 
40,000,  and  of  this  fully  forty  per  cent,  was  cast  by  women. 
There  is  every  reason  to  believe  this  percentage  will  increase,, 
until,  in  my  judgment,  the  percentage  of  women  voting  will  be 
as  large  as  that  of  men.  As  to  the  character  of  the  vote,  it 
does  not  appear  to  come  from  any  particular  classes  or  places ; 
the   cities   and   the   country   districts    alike   give   their    quota   of 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  39 

women  votes,  although  the  tendency  of  women  in  the  cities 
towards  voting  is  rather  greater  than  that  of  the  country  places. 
In  a  general  sense,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  participa- 
tion of  women  in  our  public  affairs  has  had  a  most  elevating  in- 
fluence. All  parties  see  the  necessity  of  nominating  the  best  in- 
dividuals of  their  parties.  The  natural  aim  of  women  is 
towards  the  best'  good  of  the  community  and  to  secure  the 
highest  social  conditions.  Instead  of  seeking  extremes  of 
reform,  as  had  been  predicted,  they  are  interested  in  stable  and 
conservative  administration,  for  the  benefit  of  the  homes  and 
the  children,  and  they  avoid  radical  and  excessive  reforms.  In 
short,  the  objections  which,  in  theory,  have  been  urged  against 
woman's  participation  in  public  affairs  have  been  overcome  by 
the  actual  application  of  the  system  in  Idaho,  and  with  this  has 
come  to  us  that  elevating  and  ennobling  influence  which  woman 
always  exerts  upon  the  affairs  in  which  she  has  a  part. 

Nineteenth   Century.   56:   833-41.   November,   1904. 

Check  to  Woman  Suffrage  in  the  United  States. 

Frank  Foxcroft. 

The  suffrage  movement  seems  to  have  come  to  a  standstill. 
The  agitation,  indeed,  has  not  ceased  nor  even  perceptibly  di- 
minished. There  are  local  and  state  organizations  and  a  na- 
tional federation  which  lay  annual  siege  to  the  legislatures,  and 
to  constitutional  conventions,  when  they  assemble.  But  so  far 
as  practical  results  go  these  organizations  are  accomplishing 
nothing.  No  gains  are  being  made,  and  none  for  some  years 
have  been  made  in  legislation  favorable  to  woman  suffrage. 
Utah  came  in  as  a  suffrage  state  in  1896,  under  conditions  which 
have  been  described.  In  the  same  year  Idaho  adopted  a  suf- 
frage constitutional  amendment  by  a  narrow  margin,  which 
though  it  represented  a  majority  of  the  votes  cast  on  the  proposi- 
tion, was  less  than  half  the  total  vote  at  the  election  at  which 
the  amendment  was  submitted.  Since  that  year  not  one  im- 
portant gain  has  been  made  for  the  cause.  In  1898  Delaware 
gave  the  school  ballot  to  taxpaying  woman,  and  in  two  other 
states  a  minor  form  of  suffrage  on  taxpaying  propositions  has 
been  conceded,  but  that  is  all.     In  five  states  suffrage  constitu- 


40  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

tional  amendments  have  been  defeated  at  the  polls :  in  Cali- 
fornia in  1896,  in  South  Dakota  and  Washington  in  1898,  in 
Oregon  in  1900,  and  in  New  Hampshire  in  1903.  In  1903  the 
legislatures  of  thirteen  states  rejected  woman  suffrage  bills  of 
one  type  or  another. 

The  explanation  of  this  check  to  the  woman-suffrage  move- 
ment in  the  United  States  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  movement 
has  been  brought  to  a  halt  by  the  discovery  that  the  American 
women  who  ask  for  the  ballot  constitute  only  a  small  minority 
of  their  sex.  Americans  have  a  certain  chivalry  which  prompts 
them  to  go  to  the  very  verge  of  peril,  or  beyond  it,  in  giving 
to  women,  politically,  "What  they  think  women  want.  Until  a 
comparatively  recent  date  the  advocates  of  woman  suffrage 
professed  to  speak  for  the  sex,  and  legislators  have  assumed 
that  they  did  so.  But  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  make  that  claim 
unchallenged.  Coincident  with  the  decline  in  the  suffrage  move- 
ment, as  measured  by  legislation,  and  undoubtedly  largely  the 
cause  of  it,  is  the  d'evelopment  and  formal  organization  among 
the  women  themselves  of  a  sentiment  actively  opposed  to  the 
grant  of  the  ballot  to  their  sex.  The  increasing  hostility  of 
women  to  the  suffrage  has  been  manifested  mainly  in  two  ways : 

(1)  By  the  organization  of  associations  of  women  for  the 
purpose  of  directly  antagonizing  suffrage  measures  in  the 
legislatures  of  their  own  and  other  states.  The  Massachusetts 
Association  Opposed  to  the  Further  Extension  of  Suffrage  to 
Women,  which  now,  according  to  the  statement  of  its  president, 
Mrs.  C.  E.  Guild,  at  a  legislative  hearing  in  Boston,  the  27th 
of  January,  1904,  numbers  10,691  women,  and  has  branches  in 
222  cities,  towns  and  villages  in  the  state,  was  fully  organized 
in  1895.  In  New  York  an  association  of  similar  name  and  pur- 
pose was  organized  in  the  same  year.  The  Illinois  association 
was  formed  in  1897.  I"  ^^ch  of  these  states  volunteer  com- 
mittees had  been  at  work  for  some  years  in  opposition  to  suf- 
frage measures,  but  the  first  formal  organization  was  in  1895. 
Similar  associations  or  committees  exist,  or  have  been  called  into 
activity  as  emergencies  arose,  in  Maine,  Rhode  Island,  Iowa, 
Oregon,  Washington,  and  other  states.  They  print  and  dis- 
tribute appeals,  arguments,  and  remonstrances  against  suffrage 
measures,  and  through  their  officers,  or  otherwise,  appear  per- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  41 

sonally  before  legislative  committees  to  urge  adverse  action  on 
suffrage  bills.  The  report  of  the  Massachusetts  association 
for  igo3  shows  an  expenditure  of  nearly  three  thousand  dollars 
and  a  distribution  of  32,000  leaflets  and  pamphlets. 

The  literature  published  by  these  associations  would  make 
an  interesting  collection  if  it  were  brought  together.  The  argu- 
ments of  these  remonstrative  women  are  numerous  but  con- 
sistent. They  urge  that,  while  merely  to  deposit  a  singe  vote  is 
a  momentary  act, 

the  consequence  of  thousands  and  millions  of  votes  so  deposited 
by  women  will  be  to  weaken  the  force  of  family  life,  to  bring 
church  matters  into  politics,  to  lessen  chivalry  and  tenderness  be- 
tween men  and  women,  and  to  bring  politics  into  each  question 
of  philanthropic,  social  or  educational  organization  which  should 
be  decided  solely  on  its  own  merits  and  not  for  any  effect  it  may 
have    on   party   zeal. 

They  point  to  many  laws  improving  the  status  of  women, 
and  show  that  these  substantial  gains  have  been  accomplished 
wdthout  aid  from  the  suffragists  and  in  states  in  which  women 
do  not  vote.  They  urge  that  the  functions  and  duties  of  the 
two  sexes  are  well  and  clearly  defined — to  the  strong  physique 
of  man,  the  labors  and  duties  of  the  outside  world;  to  the 
finer  and  more  spiritual  nature  of  w^oman,  the  labors  and  duties 
of  the  home  and  society;  and  that 

if  ever  the  day  arrives  when  women  cannot  in  the  long  run  de- 
pend upon  men,  to  be  the  support  and  protection  of  their  weaker 
physical  nature,  and  when  men  cannot  depend  upon  women  for 
the  tender  offices'  and  ministrations  which  belong  sacredly  and 
indefeasibly  to  the  home,  it  Mill  be  high  time  for  the  race  to 
take  account  of  itself  and   square  its   course   anew. 

They  insist  that 

it  is  not  the  tyranny  but  the  chivalry  of  men  that  we  American 
women  have  to  fear.  The  men  of  America  want  to  give  us  every- 
thing we  really  need,  and  the  danger  is  that  they  will  mistake 
a  minority  for  a  majority. 

They  argue  that  women  are  already  bearing  their  full  share 
of  the  burdens  of  society,  and  that  it  is  unjust  to  impose  upon 
them  duties  for  which  they  are  not  fitted  by  experience  or  train- 
ing. 

It  is"  hard  for  experienced  men  to  follow  intelligently  the  con- 
duct of  a  great  municipality,  to  understand  the  departments  of 
official  work,  the  subdivisions  of  labor,  the  financial  problems,  and 
then  to  decide  who  has  honestly  performed  these  great  duties. 
It  is  a  ixior  argument  to  say  that  women  would  do  as"  well  as 
many  men:   they  must   do   better   to   have   their  votes   of  any  ad- 


42  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

vantage  to  the  city;  for  addition  to  the  number  of  voters  is  no 
gain,  but,  on  the  contrary,  an  added  trouble  and  expense.  It  is 
surely  a  better  quality  of  voters  rather  than  an  increased  number 
of   them   that   our   country   needs. 

(2)  The  other  manifestation  of  the  indifference  or  active 
hostihty  of  the  great  majority  of  American  women  to  the  im- 
position of  the  ballot  was  made  in  connection  with  the  so-called 
"Referendum"  in  Massachusetts  in  1895.  This  expression  has 
been  so  influential  not  only  in  that  state,  but  in  others,  where 
it  has  been  rightly  interpreted  as  representative  of  the  attitude 
of  women  in  general,  that  it  cannot  be  overlooked  in  any  con- 
sideration of  the  present  status  of  the  suffrage  movement  in 
the  United  States. 

It  will  be  perceived  that  the  situation  presented  to  the 
American  legislator  to-day,  when  he  is  asked  to  extend  the 
suffrage  to  women,  is  very  different  from  what  it  was  a  decade 
ago.  Then  the  claim  for  suffrage  was  put  forward  in  a  general 
way  for  "the  woman,"  and  legislators  who  did  not  give  it  re- 
spectful consideratio,n  were  charged  with  lack  of  chivalry  and 
generosity.  When  hearings  were  given  upon  proposed  suf- 
frage measures,  ordinarily  only  the  petitioners  appeared,  and 
legislative  committees  were  justified  in  concluding  that  they 
expressed  the  desire  of  practically  all  women.  But  now  legisla- 
tive hearings  upon  this  question  resolve  themselves  into  a  kind 
of  joint  debate  between  women  who  want  the  ballot  and  women 
who  do  not  want  it;  and  the  women  who  appear  to  remonstrate 
against  the  extension  of  suffrage  to  their  sex  are  not  only  as  in- 
telligent, as  sincere,  and  as  earnest  as  those  who  seek  the  bal- 
lot, but  they  are  able  to  point  to  evidence,  the  nature  of  which 
has  been  already  indicated,  to  justify  their  claim  to  speak  for 
an  overwhelmingly,  though  hitherto  silent,  majority  of  their 
sex. 

To  comply  good-humoredly  with  what  was  supposed  to  be  the 
desire  of  all  or  nearly  all  women  was  one  thing;  to  vote  to 
force  the  ballot  upon  96  per  cent,  of  women  who  are  either  in- 
dift'erent  or  earnestly  opposed  to  the  proposal  at  the  clamor  of  4 
per  cent,  who  want  it  is  quite  another  matter.  Americans  have 
great  respect  for  majorities,  and  majorities  count  in  this  matter 
as  in  others.  There  are  two  considerations,  either  or  both  of 
which  might  warrant  the  extension  of  suffrage  to  women.     One 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  43 

•is  the  conviction  that  the  condition  of  women  would  be  thereby 
improved ;  the  other  is  the  belief  that  the  state  would  be  bene- 
fitted by  woman's  exercise  of  the  suffrage.  But  these  demon- 
strations of  woman's  hostility  to  the  ballot  strike  at  both  these 
considerations.  It  is  hard  for  legislators  to  believe  that  if  the 
ballot  were  likely  to  be  a  benefit  to  women,  less  than  4  per  cent, 
of  them  would  ask  for  it.  It  is  equally  hard  for  them  to  believe 
that  the  ballot,  imposed  upon  a  body  of  voters  so  reluctant  to 
accept  or  use  it,  could  be  an  instrument  for  the  improvement  of 
politics  or  the  regeneration  of  society.  It  seems,  therefore,  not 
rash  to  conclude  that  the  check  to  the  woman-suffrage  move- 
ment in  the  United  States,  following  closely,  as  it  has,  upon 
the  organized  opposition  of  women  to  it,  represents  not  a  co- 
incidence merely,  but  cause  and  effect.  In  this  case  post  hoc  is 
propter  hoc. 


North  American  Review.  175:  800-10.  December,  1902. 

Woman's   Half -Century  of   Evolution.     Susan   B.   Anthony. 

The  status  of  woman  in  the  United  States  fifty  years  ago, 
the  progressive  steps  by  which  it  has  been  improved^  present 
conditions,  future  probabilities — in  fact,  a  resume  of  the  great 
movement  in  which  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  has  been  the  cen- 
tral figure  through  two  generations — this  is  the  subject  assigned 
me  to  consider  in -the  brief  space  of  one  magazine  article! 

The  title  I  claim  for  Mrs.  Stanton  is  that  of  leader  of  women. 
■  Women  do  not  enjoy  one  privilege  to-day  beyond  those  pos- 
sessed by  their  foremothers,  which  was  not  demanded  by  her 
before  the  present  generation  was  born.  Her  published  speeches 
will  verify  this  statement.  In  the  light  of  the  present,  it  seems 
natural  that  she  should  have  made  those  first  demands  for 
women ;  but  at  the  time  it  was  done  the  act  was  far  more  revolu- 
tionary than  was  the  Declaration  of  Independence  by  the  colonial 
leaders.  There  had  been  other  rebellions  against  the  rule  of 
kings  and  nobles ;  men  from  time  immemorial  had  been  ac- 
customed to  protest  against  injustice;  but  for  women  to  take II 
such  action  was  without  a  precedent  and  the  most  daring  innova- 
tion in  all  history.     Men  of  old  could  emphasize  their  demands 


44  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

by  the  sword,  and  in  the  present  century  they  have  been  able  to 
do  so  by  the  ballot.  While  they  might,  indeed,  put  their  Hves 
in  peril,  they  were  always  supported  by  a  certain  amount  of 
sympathy  from  the  public.  Women  could  neither  fight  nor  vote ; 
they  were  not  sustained  even  by  those  of  their  own  sex;  and, 
while  they  incurred  no  physical  risk,  they  imperilled  their  repu- 
tation and  subjected  themselves  to  mental  and  spiritual  cruci- 
fixion. Therefore  I  hold  that  the  calling  of  that  first  Woman's 
Rights  Convention  in  i8z|8  by  Mrs.  Stanto,n,  Lucretia  Mott  and 
two  or  three  other  brave  Quaker  women,  was  one  of  the  most 
courageous  acts  on  record. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  at  this  time  a  woman's  conven- 
tion never  had  been  heard  of,  with  the  exception  of  the  few 
which  had  been  called,,  early  in  the  anti-slavery  movement,  by 
the  women  who  had  been  driven  out  of  the  men's  meetings  and 
had  formed  their  own  society;  but  even  these  v/ere  almost 
wholly  managed  by  men.  A  few  individual  women  had  publicly 
advocated  equality  of  rights — the  number  could  be  more  than 
counted  on  one's  fingers — but  a  convention  for  this  purpose  and 
an  organized  demand  had  been  till  then  undreamed  of.  The 
vigor  and  scope  of  the  declaration  of  sentiments  which  was  pre- 
sented and  adopted  at  this  memorable  meeting,  held  at  Mrs. 
Stanton's  home,  in  Seneca  Falls,  New  York,  are  in  nowise  di- 
minished by  comparison  with  the  declaration  of  the  forefathers 
proclaimed  exactly  seventy-two  years  before.  It  began,  indeed, 
with  the  preamble  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  substi- 
tuting "women"  for  "men"  and-  "colonies" ;  and  it  continued : 

"The  history  of  mankind  is  a  history  of  repeated  injuries  and 
usurpations  on  the  part  of  man  toward  woman,  having  in  direct 
object  the  establishment  of  an  absolute  tyranny  over  her.  To 
prove   this,    let   facts   be    submitted    to   a    candid    world: 

"He  has  never  permitted  her  to  exercise  her  inalienable  right 
to  the  elective  franchise. 

"He  has  compelled  her  to  submit  to  laws  in  the  formation  of 
which   she   has   no  voice. 

"He  has  witheld  from  her  rights  which  are  given  to  the  most 
ignorant    and    degraded    men — both    natives    and    foreigners. 

"Having  deprived  her  of  this  first  right  of  a  citizen,  the  elec- 
tive franchise,  thereby  leaving  her  without  representation  in  the 
iialls    of   legislation,    he    has    oppressed    her    on    a'l    side« 

"He  has  made  her,  if  married,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  civilly 
dead. 

"He  has  taken  from  her  all  right  in  property,  even  to  the 
wages   she   earns. 

"He  has  made  her  morally  an  irresponsible  being,  as  she  can 
commit  many  crimes  with  impunity,  provided  they  be  done  in  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  45 

presence  of  her  hus'band.  In  the  covenant  of  marriage,  she  is 
compelled  to  promise  obedience  to  her  husband,  he  becoming,  to 
all  intents  and  purposes,  her  master — the  law  giving  him  power 
to   deprive   her   of   her   liberty   and    to   administer   chastisement. 

"He  has  so  framed  the  laws  of  divorce,  as  to  what  shall  be 
the  proper  causes,  and  to  whom'  the  guardianship  of  the  children 
^hall  be  given,  as  to  be  wholly  regardless  of  the  happiness  of 
woman — the  law,  in  all  cases',  going  upon  a  false  supposition  of 
the  supremacy  of  man,  and  giving  all  power  into   his  hands. 

"After  depriving  her  of  all  rights  as  a  married  woman,  if 
single  and  the  owner  of  property,  he  has  taxed  her  to  support 
a  government  which  recognizes  her  only  when  her  property  can 
be   made    profitable    to   it. 

"He  has  monopolized  nearly  all  the  profitable  employments, 
and  from  those  she  is  permitted  to  follow,  she  receives  but  a 
scanty   remiineration. 

"He  has  closed  against  her  all  the  avenues  to  wealth  and 
distinction  which  he  considers  most  honorable  to  himself.  In 
theology,   medicine,   and   law  she  is   not  known. 

"He  has-  denied  her  the  facilities  for  obtaining  a  thorough 
education — all    colleges    being   closed   against    her. 

"He  allows  her  in  church,  as  well  as  state,  but  a  subordinate 
position,  claiming  Apostolic  authority  for  her  exclusion  from'  the 
ministry,  and,  with  s'ome  exceptions,  from  any  public  participa- 
tion in   the  affairs   of  the   church. 

"rie  has  created  a  false  public  sentiment  by  giving  to  the 
world  a  different  code  of  morals  for  men  and  women,  by  which 
■moral  delinquencies  which  exclude  women  from  society  are  not 
only    tolerated    but   deemed    of   little   account   in   man. 

"He  has  usurped  the  prerogative  of  Jehovah  himself,  claim- 
ing it  as  his"  right  to  assign  for  her  a  sphere  of  action,  when 
that  belongs  to   her  conscience  and  to  her   God. 

"He  has  endeavored,  in  every  way  that  he  could  to  destroy 
her  confidence  in  her  own  powers,  to  lessen  her  self-respect  and 
to  make  her  willing  to  lead  a  dependent  and  abject  life. 

"Now,  in  view  of  this  entire  disfranchisement  of  one-half  the 
people  of  this  country,  their  social  and  religious  degradation — 
in  view  of  the  unjust  laws  above  mentioned,  and  because  women 
do  feel  themselves  aggrieved,  oppressd  and  fraudulently  deprived 
of  their  mos-t  sacred  rights,  we  insist  that  they  have  immediate 
admission  to  all  the  rights  and  privileges  which  belong  to  them 
as  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

"In  entering  upon  the  great  work  before  us  we  anticipate  no 
small  amount  of  misconception,  misrepresentation  and  ridicule; 
but  we  s-hall  use  every  instrumentality  within  our  power  to  effect 
our  object.  We  shall  'employ  agents,  circulate  tracts,  petition  the 
state  and  national  legislatures,  and  endeavor  to  enlist  the  pulpit 
and  the  press  in  our  behalf.  Wie  hope  this  convention  will  be 
followed  by  a  series  of  conventions',  embracing  every  part  of  the 
country." 

"Firmly  relying  upon  the  final  triumph  of  the  Right  and  the 
True,   we   do   this   day   affix   our   signatures    to   this   declaration," 

To  emphasize  these  most  radical  sentiments  the  following 
resolutions  also  were  adopted : 

"The  great  precept  of  nature  is  conceded  to  be,  'that  man 
shall  pursue  his  own  true  and  substantial  happiness.'  Blackstone, 
in  his  Commentaries,  remarks,  that  this  law  of  Nature  being 
coeval  with  mankind  and  dictated  by  God  himself,  is  of  course 
superior  in  obligation  to  any  other.  It  is  binding  over  all  the 
globe,  in  all  countries,  and  at  all  times:  no  human  laws  are  of 
any  validity  if  contrary  to  this,  and  such  of  them  as  are  valid 
derive  all  their  force  and  all  their  validity  and  all  their  author- 
ity,  mediately  and   immediatelj^   from  this   original;   therefore, 


46  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

"Resolved,  That  such  laws  as  conflict,  in  any  way,  with  the 
true  and  substantial  happiness  of  woman,  are  contrary  to  the 
great  precept  of  nature  and  of  no  validity;  for  this  is  'superior 
in   obligation   to   any   other.' 

"Resolved,  That  all  laws  which  prevent  woman  from  occupy- 
ing such  a  station  in  society  as  her  conscience  shall  dictate,  or 
w^hich  place  her  in  a  position  inferior  to  that  of  man,  are  con- 
trary to  the  great  precept  of  nature  and  therefore  of  no  force 
or   authority. 

"Resolved,  That  woman  is  man's  equal — was  intended  to  be  so 
by  the  Creator — and  the  highest  good  of  the  race  demands  that 
she   should   be   recognized    as    such. 

"Resolved,  That  the  women  of  this  country  ought  to  be  en- 
lightened in  regard  to  the  laws  under  which  they  live,  that  they 
may  no  longer  publish  their  degradation  by  declaring  themselves 
satisfied  with  their  present  position,  nor  their  ignorance  by  as- 
serting that  they   have  all   the  rights   they  want. 

"Resolved,  That  inasmuch  as  man,  while  claiming  for  himself 
intellectual  superiority,  does  accord  to  woman  moral  sxiperiority, 
it  is  pre-eminently  his  duty  to  encourage  her  to  speak  and  teach, 
as  she  has  an  opportunity,   in  all  religious  assemblies. 

"Resolved,  That  the  same  amount  of  virtue,  delicacy  and  re- 
finement of  behavior  that  is  required  of  woman  in  the  social  state 
should  also  be  required  of  man,  and  the  same  transgressions 
should   be  visited  with   equal   severity   on   both  man  and  woman. 

"Resolved,  That  the  objection  of  indelicacy  and  impropriety, 
which  is  so  often  brought  against  woman  when  she  addresses  a 
public  audience,  comes  with  a  very  ill-grace  from  those  whg 
encourage  by  their  attendance  her  appearance  on  the  stage,  in 
the   concert   or  in   feats'  of   the   circus. 

"Resolved,  That  woman  has  too  long  rested  satisfied  in  the 
circumscribed  limits  which  corrupt  customs  and  a  perverted  ap- 
plication of  the  Scriptures  have  marked  out  for  her,  and  that  it 
is  time  she  should  move  in  the  enlarged  sphere  which  her  great 
Creator  has  assigned  her. 

"Resolved,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  the  women  of  this  country 
to  secure  to  themselves  their  sacred  right  to  the  elective  fran- 
chis'e. 

"Resolved,  That  the  equality  of  human  rights  results  nec- 
essarily from  the  fact  of  the  identity  of  the  race  in  capabilities 
and    responsibilities. 

"Resolved,  therefore.  That,  being  invested  by  the  Creator  with 
the  same  capabilities'  and  the  same  consciousness  of  responsibility 
for  their  exercise,  it  is  demonstrably  the  right  and  duty  of  woman, 
equally  with  man,  to  promote  every  righteous  cause  by  every 
righteous  means;  and  especially  in  regard  to  the  great  subjects  of 
morals  and  religion,  it  is  self-evidently  her  right  to  participate 
with  her  brother  in  teaching  them,  both  in  private  and  in  public, 
by  writing  and  by  speaking,  by  any  instrumentalities  proper  to  be 
used  and  in  any  assemblies  proper  to  be  held;  and  this  being  a 
self-evident  truth,  growing  out  of  the  divinely  implanted  prin- 
cinles  of  human  nature,  any  custom  or  authority  advers'e  to  it, 
whether  modern  or  wearing  the  hoary  sanction  of  antiquity,  is  to 
be  regarded  as  a  self-evident  falsehood  and  at  war  with  the  in- 
terests  of  mankind." 

In  all  the  conventions  which  have  been  held  during  the 
past  fifty-four  years,  the  impassioned  addresses  made,  the  reso- 
lutions presented,  the  hearings  before  legislative  bodies,  there 
has  been  nothing  to  add  to  these  declarations  made  by  a  w^cman 
'only  thirty-three  years  old,  born  and  bred  in  the  midst  of  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  47 

most  rigid  social,  civil  and  religious  conservatism.  They  il- 
lustrate vividly  the  conditions  which  existed  in  that  day,  when 
the  simplest  rudiments  of  education  were  deemed  sufficient  for 
women;  when  only  a  half-dozen  unremunerative  employments 
were  open  to  them  and  any  work  outside  the  home  placed  3. 
stigma  on  the  worker;  when  a  woman's  right  to  speak  in  public 
was  more  bitterly  contested  than  her  right  to  the  suffrage  is 
t(>day.  The  storm  of  ridicule  and  denunciation  which  broke 
over  the  heads  of  the  women  who  took  part  in  this  convention 
never  has  been  exceeded  in  the  coarsest  and  most  vituperative 
political  campaign  ever  conducted.  The  attacks  were  led  by  the 
pulpit,  whose  influence  fifty  years  ago  was  far  greater  than  at 
present  and  whose  power  over  women  was  supreme.  The  press 
of  the  country  did  not  suffer  itself  to  be  outdone ;  but,  taking  its 
cue  from  the  metropolitan  papers  of  New  York,  contributed  its 
full  quota  of  caricature  and  misrepresentation. 

At  the  beginning  of  1848,  the  English  Common  Law  was  in 
force  practically  everywhere  in  the  United  States.  Its  treatment 
of  women  was  a  blot  on  civilization  only  equalled  in  blackness 
by  the  slavery  of  the  negro.  The  latter,  technically  at  least,  has 
now  disappeared.  The  former  dies  slowly,  because  it  cannot  be 
eradicated  by  fire  and  sword.  Lord  Coke  called  this  Common 
Law  *'the  perfection  of  reason."  Under  its  provisions  the  posi- 
tion of  the  wife  was  thus  stated  by  Blackstone : 

"The  very  being  or  existence  of  the  woman  is  suspended  during 
the  marriage,  or  at  least  is  incorporated  and  consolidated  into  that 
of  the  husband,  under  whose  wing,  protection  and  covert  she  per- 
forms everything.  She  is,  therefore,  called  in  our  Law-French  a 
femme-coverf,  is  said  to  be  covert -har on,  or  under  the  protection 
and    influence   of    her    husband,    her    baron    or   lord. 

"The  husband  also,  by  the  old  law,  might  give  his  wife  mod- 
erate correction.  For,  as  he  is  to  answer  for  her  misbehavior,  the 
law  thought  it  reasonable  to  intrust  him  with  this*  power  of  re- 
straining her  by  domestic  chastisement  in  the  same  moderation 
that  a  man  is  allowed  to  correct  his  apprentices  or  children.  But 
this  power  of  correction  was*  confined  within  reasonable  bounds, 
and  the  husband  was  prohibited  from  using  any  violence  to  his 
wife,  except  as  lawfully  and  reasonably  belongs  to  a  husband  for 
the  sake  of  governing  and  disciplining  his-  wife.  The  Civil  Law 
gave  the  husband  the  same  or  a  larger  authority  over  his  wife, 
allowing  him  for  some  misdemeanors  to  beat  his  wife  severely 
with  whips  and  cudgels';  for  others  only  to  administer  moderate 
chastisement." 

Other  provisions  of  this  law  vv^ere  as  follows : 

"By  marriage,  the  husband  and  wife  are  one  person  in  law; 
that   is,    the   legal   existence    of   the  woman    is   merged    in    that   of 


48  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

her  husband.  He  is  her  baron  or  lord,  bound  to  supply  her  with 
s*helter,  food,  clothing-,  and  medicine,  and  is  entitled  to  her  earn- 
ings and  the  use  and  custody  of  her  person,  which  he  may  seize 
wherever   he  maj'   find   it." 

"The  husband,  being  bound  to  provide  for  his  wife  the  nec- 
essaries of  life,  and  being  responsible  for  her  morals  and  the 
good  order  of  the  household,  may  choose  and  govern  the  domicile, 
select  her  associates,  separate  her  from  her  relatives*,  restrain  her 
religious  and  personal  freedom,  compel  her  to  cohabit  with  him, 
correct  her  faults  by  mild  means,  and,  if  necessary,  chas-tise  her 
with  moderation,  as  though  she  was  his  apprepitice  or  child.  This 
is  in  respect  to  the  terms  of  the  marriage  contract  and  the  in- 
firmity of  the  sex." 

It  does  not  seem  necessary  to  add  further  particulars  as  to 
the  condition  of  women  in  the  middle  of  the  century  just  closed 
and  at  the  time  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton  began  the  almost  super- 
human task  of  setting"  them  free  from  the  bondage  of  centuries. 
The  first  cleft  in  the  infamy  of  the  Common  Law  was  made 
almost  simultaneously  by  the  legislatures  of  New  York,  and 
Pennsylvania,  in  the  spring  of  1848,  by  special  statutes  giving 
a  married  woman  the  right  to  hold  property.  This  was  the  first 
glimmer  of  freedom  from  legal  slavery  which  ever  had  ap- 
peared to  women ;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  it  scarcely  pene- 
trated the  darkness  in  which  they  had  been  enveloped  for  un- 
told ages,  or  that  they  rejected  with  scorn  those  who  came  to 
deliver  them. 

To  follow  in  detail  the  steps  by  which  women  have  reached 
their  present  position  of  comparative  social,  educational,  finan- 
cial and  legal  independence,  would  be  to  write  a  chapter  for 
each  of  the  fifty  years  which  have  intervened  since  the  first 
few  brave  souls  dared  lift  up  their  voices  in  a  cry  for  liberty. 
The  organized  movement  for  the  emancipation  of  women  began 
in  earnest  soon  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War.  Every  one 
of  the  past  thirty-five  years  has  witnessed  the  breaking  of  a 
link  in  the  chain.  The  going  forth  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  men  from  the  farm,  the  work-shop,  the  factory,  the  store — 
from  every  field  of  employment — to  swell  the  ranks  of  the 
army,  made  it  absolutely  necessary  for  women  to  step  into  their 
places  in  order  that  the  countless  wheels  of  the  world's  work 
should  not  stop.  The  vacancies  left  by  those  wdio  never  re- 
turned, and  the  rapidly-growing  tendency  to  remove  domestic 
products  from  the  home  to  the  factory,  practically  settled  the 
question  of  w^oman's  entering  the  wage-earning  occupations. 

The  period  immediately  after  the  war  was   marked   by  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  49 

speedy  increase  and  enlargement  of  state  universities  and  the 
admission  of  women.  Their  example  was  followed  by  many^  of 
the  other  colleges  and  universities  of  the  country,  and  in  1890 
by  the  founding  of  the  two  great  endowed  institutions,  Stanford 
a,nd  Chicago,  with  the  admission  of  women  to  every  department. 
Although  the  latter  has  just  made  the  egregious  blunder  of 
modifying  its  original  plan,  this  action  represents  only  the  in- 
dividual scheme  of  one  man  and  not  a  reactionary  tendency.  The 
question  of  the  higher  education  of  woman  may  be  regarded  as 
decided  in  her  favor. 

The  right  of  women  to  organize  for  public  work  is  now  uni- 
versally recognized  and  approved.  They  have  at  present  in  the 
United  States  over  '  one  hundred  national  organizations,  with 
thousands  of  -local  clubs  and  societies  comprising  millions  of 
members,  and  their  influence  over  the  general  conditions  of  the 
various  communities  is  beyond  computation.  The  right  of 
women  to  speak  in  public  is  not  only  everywhere  conceded  but, 
given  a  man  and  a  woman  with  equal  abilities,  the  average  audi- 
ence would  prefer  to  hear  the  latter. 

The  legal  features  of  the  revolution  have  been  quite  as 
marked  as  its  other  phases.  An  examination,  doubtless,  would 
show  that  in  not  one  state  does  the  Common  Law  now  prevail 
in  its  entirety.  In  many  of  them  it  has  been  largely  obliterated 
by  special  statutes.  There  has  been  no  retrogressive  legislation 
with  respect  to  the  status  of  women  before  the  law.  In  the, 
majority  of  the  states,  a  married  woman  may  now  own  and 
control  property,  carry  on  business  and  possess  her  earnings, 
make  a  will  and  a  contract,  bring  suit  in  her  own  name,  act  as 
administrator  and  testify  in  the  courts.  In  one-fifth  of  the 
states,  she  has  equal  guardianship  with  the  father  over  the 
minor  children.  Where  formerly  there  was  but  one  clause  for 
divorce,  the  wife  may  now  obtain  a  divorce  in  almost  every 
state  for  habitual  drunkenness,  cruelty,  failure  to  provide  and 
desertion  on  the  part  of  the  husband ;  and  he  can  no  longer, 
as  of  old  even  though  the  guilty  party,  retain  sole  possession  of 
the  children  and  the  property.  The  general  tendency  of  legisla- 
tion for  women  is  progressive,  and  there  is  not  a  doubt  that  this 
will  continue  to  be  the  case. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood   for  a  moment,  however,  as 


50  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

maintaining  that  woman  stands  on  a  perfect  equality  with  man 
in  any  of  the  above-mentioned  departments — in  the  industries, 
education,  organization,  public  speaking  or  the  laws.  She  simply 
has  made  immense  gains  in  all,  and  her  standing  has  been  com- 
pletely revolutionized  since  Mrs.  Stanton  announced  the  begin- 
ning of  a  new  Reformation.  Woman  never  will  have  equaHty 
of  rights  anywhere,  she  never  will  hold  those  she  now  has  by 
"an  absolute  tenure,  until  she  possesses  the  fundamental  right 
of  self-representation.  This  fact  is  so  obvious  as  to  need  no 
argument.  Had  this  right  been  conceded  at  the  start,  the 
others  would  have  speedily  followed ;  and  the  leaders  among 
women,  instead  of  spending  the  last  half-century  in  a  constant 
struggle  to  obtain  their  civil  and  political  rights,  might 
have  contributed  their  splendid  services  to  the  general  upbuild- 
ing and  strengthening  of  the  government.  The  effort  for  this 
most  important  of  rights  has  had  to  contend  not  only,  like  the 
rest,  with  the  obstinate  prejudices  and  customs  of  the  ages, 
but  also  with  the  still  more  stubborn  condition  of  its  hard  and 
fast  intrenchment  in  constitutional  law.  It  is  not  merely  a 
board  of  trustees  or  a  body  of  legislators  who  must  be  con- 
verted to  the  justice  of  extending  this  right  to  women,  but  also 
the  great  masses  of  men,  including  the  ignorant,  the  foreign- 
born,  the  small-minded  and  the  vicious.  A  majority  of  the  men 
in  every  state  must  give  their  consent  at  the  ballot  box  for 
women  to  come  into  possession  of  this  paramount  right.  Such 
has  not  been  the  case  with  any  other  step  in  the  progress  of 
women. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  consider  the  minor  reasons  why  the  en- 
franchisement of  women  has  been  so  long  deferred;  but.  in  spite 
of  the  almost  insuperable  obstacles,  there  has  been  considerable 
progress  in  this  direction.  In  some  states,  the  legislatures  them- 
selves can  confer  a  fragmentary  suffrage  without  the  ratification 
of  the  voters.  This  has  been  done  in  about  half  of  them,  Kansas 
granting  the  municipal  franchise,  Louisiana,  Montana,  and  New 
York,  a  taxpayers'  franchise,  and  twenty-two  states  a  vote  on 
matters  connected  with  the  public  schools.  Within  the  last 
twelve  years,  four  states  have  conferred  the  full  suffrage  on 
women — Wyoming  and  Utah  by  placing  it  in  the  constitutions 
under  which  they  entered  statehood ;  Colorado  and  Idaho  through 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  51 

a  submission  of  the  question  to  the  voters.  There  is  a  strong  basis 
for  believing  that  within  a  few  years  several  other  states  will 
take  similar  action. 

The  effect  upon  women  themselves  of  these  enlarged  oppor- 
tunities in  every  direction  has  been  a  development  which  is  almost 
a  regeneration.  The  capability  they  have  shown  in  the  realm  of 
higher  education,  their  achievements  in  the  business  world,  their 
capacity  for  organization,  their  executive  power,  have  been  a 
revelation.  To  set  women  back  into  the  limited  sphere  of  fifty 
years  ago  would  be  to  arrest  the  progress  of  the  whole  race. 
Their  evolution  has  been  accompanied  by  a  corresponding  de- 
velopment in  the  moral  nature  of  man,  his  ideas  of  temperance 
and  chastity,  his  sense  of  justice,  his  relations  to  society.  In  no 
department  of  the  world's  activities  are  the  higher  qualities  .so 
painfully  lacking  as  in  politics,  and  this  is  the  only  one  from 
Avhich  women  are  wholly  excluded.  Is  it  not  perfectly  logical  to 
assume  that  their  influence  would  be  as  beneficial  here  as  it  has 
been  everywhere  else?  Does  not  logic  also  justify  the  opinion 
that,  as  they  have  been  admitted  into  every  other  channel,  the 
political  gateways  must  inevitably  be  opened? 

North  American  Review.  183:  1272-9.  December  26,  1906. 

Australian  Woman  and  the  Ballot.   Alice  Henry. 

W^hile  suffragists  and  anti-suffragists  are  mostly  compelled 
by  the  nature  of  the  case  to  argue  from  either  the  logic  or  the 
sentiment  of  the  position,  and  are  continually  driven  to  anticipate 
possible  results,  it  may  be  of  interest  to  the  public  in  the  United 
States  to  review  the  history  of  the  movement  in  Australia,  the 
country  where  the  reform  has  been  effected  on  by  far  the  com- 
pletest  scale  ever  attempted  or  ever  accomplished.  A  sketch  of 
the  Australian  constitution,  an  analysis  of  the  causes  that  there 
led  up  to  woman's  enfranchisement  and  an  account  of  the  meth- 
ods successfully  adopted  there  will  show  the  points  of  resem- 
blance and  of  difference  between  the  movement  in  the  United 
States  and  in  Australia. 

Up  to  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the  seven  colonies  in 
the   Australasian   group   were   not  only   entirely  independent   of 


52  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

one  another  politically,  but  there  was  comparatively  little  co- 
operation between  organized  bodies  and  parties  having  similar 
aims  in  these  different  provinces.  Even  though  railroad  and 
steamship  and  telegraph  were  ever  bringing  the  colonies  nearer 
together,  distance,  combined  with  the  fact  of  distinct  govern- 
ments, seemed  to  make  united  action  upon  the  .part  of  any  one  set 
of  people  when  scattered  all  over  the  continent  at  once  difficult 
and  futile.  In  common,  therefore,  with  all  other  forms  of  polit- 
ical action,  the  propaganda  for  woman  suffrage  and  the  opposi- 
tion thereto  were  carried  on  quite  separately  in  the  several  colo- 
nies. 

The  experience  of  Victoria,  however,  as  the  colony  in  which 
the  agitation  was  first  started,  may  be  taken  as  typical  of  what 
happened  in  all  the  others.  The  first  legislative  move  was  made 
in  1873,  when  the  Hon.  George  Higinbotham,  afterwards  Chief 
Justice  of  the  colony,  introduced  as  an  amendment  to  an  elec- 
toral bill  a  clause  which,  if  passed,  would  have  conferred  the 
franchise  upon  women  upon  the  same  terms  as  those  on  which 
it  was  then  held  by  men.  The  amendment  was,  of  course,  re- 
jected, and  subsequent  attempts  of  the  same  nature  met  with 
no  better  success.  It  was-  not  till  1884  that  agitation  outside  of 
the  legislature  was  seriously  attempted.  In  that  year,  the  re- 
doubtable Mrs.  Dugdale,  backed  by  Mrs.  Lowe — who  in  earlier 
days  had  done  pioneering  of  a  rougher  sort,  having  been  the 
first  white  woman  to  settle  in  the  far  west  of  Queensland, — Mr. 
Higinbotham  himself  and  others  formed  the  first  Australian  wom- 
an-suffrage society.  Slowly,  as  it  seemed  to  them,  biit  very 
speedily  indeed  as  it  may  appear  in  the  retrospect,  public  opin- 
ion was  being  educated ;  and,  by  the  early  nineties,  a  number 
of  circumstances  combined  to  give  the  movement  a  forward 
impulse.  The  first  of  these  was  the  return  to  Victoria  of  Miss 
Annette  Bear  (afterwards  Mrs.  Bear-Crawford),  who,  during 
many  years  spent  in  England,  had  been  associated  with  such 
women  as  Mrs.  Fawcett,  Mrs.  Percy  Bunting,  Mrs.  Sheldon  Amos 
and  other  veteran  workers  in  the  cause.  She  brought  with 
her  plans  for  combining  the  efforts  of  scattered  societies  into  a 
United  Council.  Al3out  this  time,  also,  the  Labor  party  came 
into  existence  and  soon  began  to  make  itself  felt  in  politics. 
Few  of  its  leaders  at  first  realized  what  a  menace  to  themselves 


-     WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  53 

and  their  interests  was  the  unrepresented  woman  in  industry. 
With  the  closer  organization  of  the  Victorian  Labor  party,  that 
negative  position  was  abandoned,  the  subject  of  woman  suffrage 
was  raised  out  of  theoretical  fogs  and  supported  consistently 
by  the  party.  Repeatedly  was  a  woman-suffrage  bill  passed  by 
the  Lower  House,  and  as  invariably  was  it  rejected  by  the  Up- 
per House,  a  curious  fossilized  product,  composed  of  landowners, 
nominally  elected  on  a  high  property  qualification,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  rarely  elected  at  all,  so  seldom  had  its  members 
to  risk  their  seats  by  any  process  so  disagreeable  as  an  election. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  other  colonies,  matters  were  not  standing 
still.  The  New  Zealand  suffragists  had  gained  their  object  in 
1893.  The  1st  of  January,  1895,  saw  the  South-Australian 
women  dowered  with  the  vote.  Western-Australian  women  fol- 
lowed suit  in  1899,  the  change  there  being,  for  political  reasons, 
supported  by  the  Conservatives. 

Now  entered  a  curiously  complicating  factor.  On  the  first 
day  of  the  new  century,  the  five  continental  colonies  and  Tas- 
mania united  into  the  Australian  Commonwealth,  New  Zealand, 
on  account  largely  of  the  fifteen  hundred  miles  of  rough  sea 
which  separated  her  from  the  others,  standing  apart.  This  meant 
a  severing  of  all  Australian  legislation  into  two  parts — national 
and  state.  National  matters — including,  for  instance,  tariffs,  cur- 
rency, mails,  defence — were  taken  over  by  the  newly  constituted 
federal  houses.  State  affairs  were  confined  to  such  local  inter- 
ests as  education,  the  care  of  children,  crime,  sanitation  and  agri- 
culture. Under  the  new  control,  the  women  of  South  and  West- 
ern Australia,  because  they  had  previously  enjoyed  the  privilege 
of  a  state  vote,  automatically  acquired  the  federal  vote.  The 
women  of  the  other  colonies  (hereafter  to  be  styled  states),  be- 
cause they  had  had  no  voice  in  the  management  of  state  affairs, 
and  for  no  other  reason,  were  denied  the  privilege  in  relation  to 
the  larger  national  affairs.  The  federal  Parliament  did  not  long 
leave  matters  in  that  unsatisfactory  position.  In  its  very  first 
session,  the  Australian  Parliament  grafted  on  to  the  act  provid- 
ing for  its  own  future  election  a  clause  equalizing  the  political 
rights  of  men  and  women  throughout  the  Commonwealth,  giving 
to  all  adult  women  the  right  to  vote  for  members  of  both  federal 
houses.     The   ease   with   which  this  victory  was   won  was  due 


54  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

partly  to  the  educative  campaign  that  had  for  thirty  years  been 
carried  on  in  all  the  states  separately  and  in  all  the  state  houses 
from  among  the  members  of  which  the  first  federal  members 
were  mostly  drawn,  and  partly  to  the  extremely  broad  and  demo- 
cratic basis  of  the  federal  constitution  and  the  direct  methods 
of  election  and  representation  prescribed.  As  it  appears  to  me, 
the  main  point  in  which  Australia  differs  politically  from  the 
United  States  lies  here,  in  the  more  direct,  and  therefore  more 
effective,   mode   of   giving   expression   to   the   popular   will. 

This  step  on  the  part  of  the  federal  government  facilitated  the 
task  of  those  who  were  struggling  for  state  enfranchisement  in 
New  South  Wales,  Queensland  and  Tasmania.  Even  conscien- 
tious opponents  recognized  that  to  give  to  women  a  voice  in  na- 
tional matters  and  to  prevent  them  from  sharing  in  the  control 
of  matters  regarding  which  their  knowledge  was  presumably  both 
sounder  and  wider  and  their  interest  far  more  keen,  would  be 
a  trifle  inconsistent,  not  to  say  ludicrous.  So,  between  1902  and 
1905,  the  state  vote  was  conferred  upon  women  in  all  these  states. 
And  now,  alone  among  her  sisters,  it  is  the  Victorian  woman 
who,  though  she  can  express  her  views  upon  some  obscure  ques- 
tion of  currency  or  patent  rights,  has  no  power  to  say  whether 
or  not  Melbourne  shall  have  a  juvenile  court. 

In  all  probability,  Australian  women  would  not  have  had  the 
ballot  to-day  if  they  had  not  concentrated  all  their  forces  upon 
the  effort  to  secure  it.  It  is  sometimes  difficult  for  a  good  wom- 
an to  stop  her  ears  when  so  many  moral  and  industrial  evils  are 
crying  for  remedy,  and  to  confine  herself  to  urging  so  apparently 
remote  and  academic  a  remedy  as  the  vote.  But  the  argument 
there — and  it  has  proved  a  sound  one  in  this  instance — was  that 
the  vote  alone,  when  once  secured,  could  bring  about  quickly,  and 
with  no  waste  of  energy,  reforms  that  otherwise  must  lag  slow- 
footed  behind  legislation  far  less  urgent  and  important.  Con- 
sequently, because  the  women  workers  asked  for  this  one  thing 
and  would  be  satisfied  with  nothing  but  this  one  thing,  neither 
the  energy  of  the  women  nor  the  interest  cf  legislators  and  the 
public  was  dissipated  and  scattered. 

Of  all  the  plans  tried  in  the  campaign— petitioning,  news- 
paper correspondence,  public  meetings  and  the  persistent  ques- 
tioning in  writing  of  candidates  and  legislators — the  last  seems 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  55 

to  have  been  the  only  one  that  was  worth  the  labor  bestowed  upon 
it.  P'or  years,  every  candidate  for  every  office  was  questioned  as 
to  his  views  on  this  one  subject.  His  answer,  or  the  fact  of  his  . 
not  answering,  was  filed ;  a  careful  record  was  kept,  of  his  sub- 
sequent speeches  and  votes,  and  he  was  called  upon,  politely  but 
firmly,  to  explain  any  inconsistency  between  promise  and  per- 
formance. 

If  those  Australian  women  who  asked  for  the  suffrage  pos- 
sessed one  advantage  over  their  American  sisters  in  the  com- 
parative directness  of  electoral  representation,  they  had  another 
in  the  simplicity  of  the  constitution,  both  state  and  federal.  Even 
the  Victorian  women  have  had  only  two  legislative  bodies  to  con- 
vert, and  no  additional  outside  body  of  voters.  No  governor 
would  veto  a  bill  granting  the  franchise  to  women  when  passed 
by  an  absolute  majority  of  both  houses,  nor  has  the  Royal  assent 
to  a  bill  ever  been  denied  under  similar  circumstances.  Again,  it 
told  in  their  favor  that  the  movement  was  never  a  fashionable 
one,  the  men  and  women  who  supported  and  labored  for  it  having 
been,  with  few  exceptions,  of  the  working  classes,  so  that  the 
question  was  presented  to  the  average  working-class  elector 
unhampered  by  any  misleading  or  suspicion-breeding  disguise. 

The  use  of  the  future  tense,  so  freely  resorted  to  in  discussions 
on  woman  and  the  use  she  will  make  of  the  ballot  as  a  reason 
why  she  should  or  should  not  have  it,  is  in  practice  discounted. 
"Hope  thou  not  much,  and  fear  not  thou  at  all"  is  a  sentiment 
that  may  well  be  impressed  both  upon  those  who  expect  impos- 
sibilities and  upon  those  who  dread  imaginary  evils.  Ardent 
Radicals  and  cautious  Conservatives  among  us  have  alike  learned 
that  results,  either  as  seen  in  legislation  or  as  traceable  in  changes 
in  the  mental  outlook  of  women  themselves,  are  wholesomely 
gradual.  It  is  well  that  it  should  be  so,  that  women  should  but 
slowly  assume  their   full  political   responsibilities. 

As  regards  educative  effects,  those  have  been  most  strikingly 
seen  among  conservative  women.  These  have  organized  and  taken 
part  in  movements  for  legislative  reform,  sometimes  on  party 
lines,  more  often  on  non-party  lines,  to  an  extent  unknown  before. 
There  are  also  many  proofs  that  there  is  a  good  deal  of  family 
discussion  of  public  questions,  of  an  unquestionably  educative 
tendency,  now  that  the  women  of  the  family  are  no  longer  ciphers, 


56  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

but  openly  acknowledged  citizens.  But,  while  the  family  which 
has  added  a  new  stock  of  subjects  to  the  interest  of  breakfast- 
table  conversation  is  so  common  as  to  attract  no  notice,  the  fam- 
ily disintegrated  by  political  differences  has  not  yet  been  un- 
earthed, even  by  the  most  obstinate  legislative  councillor.  I 
have  been  present  at  many  political  meetings,  and  at  several 
elections  in  more  than  one  state,  and  1  have  exercised  my  own 
vote.  I  have  never,  upon  one  single  occasion,  had  reason  to 
wish  myself  or  other  women  away.  The  meetings  have  im- 
proved in  tone  and  in  earnestness ;  and  women  have,  with 
Tennyson's  ideal  wife,  gained  in  breadth  of  view.  The  polling- 
booths  are  as  respectable  as  the  vestibule  of  a  railroad  depot 
or  a  theatre,  and  the  process  of  voting  is  as  simple  as  that  of 
buying  a  ticket.  The  ordinary  house-wife  votes  during  the 
slack  hours  when  she  would  be  out  marketing,  very  likely,  any- 
way, the  baby — who  was  to  be,  so  we  were  told,  so  hopelessly 
neglected  when  his  mother  took  to  politics — often  accompanying 
Iier  in  his  go-cart. 

The  argument  that  women  will  not  vote  is  completely  dis- 
proved by  Australian  experience.  They  not  only  vote,  but  they 
vote  in  continually  increasing  numbers  as  time  goes  on,  and  they 
become  educated  up  to  a  sense  of  their  political  responsibilities 
and  all  that  these  imply.  Not  all  the  states  discriminate  in  their 
returns  between  men  and  women  voters,  but  those  that  do  shov; 
something  like  the  following:  In  South  AustraHa,  at  the  la^t 
general  election,  59  per  cent,  of  the  men  on  the  rolls  voted,  and 
42  per  cent,  of  the  women ;  in  Western  Australia,  49  per  cent,  of 
the  men  and  47  per  cent,  of  the  women  voted ;  at  the  last  federal 
election,  56  per  cent,  of  the  men  voted,  and  40  per  cent,  of  the 
women.  None  of  the  Australian  states  has  yet  reached  the  ex- 
traordinary record  of  New  Zealand,  where,  in  1902,  nearly  75 
per  cent,  of  the  women  electors  recorded  their  votes,  as  against 
76  per  cent,  of  their  brothers. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  add  that  the  conservative  woman  votes. 
Her  husband  or  father  and  their  newspaper  take  good  care  that 
the  duty  of  doing  so  is  well  impressed  upon  her,  even  though 
abstractly  they  may  all  three  disapprove  of  woman  in  politics, 
and  have  striven  to  avert  her  appearing  in  that  arena  as  long  as 
they  possibly  could. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  57 

In  the  legislative  world,  the  trend  of  the  laws  whose  passage 
has  been  brought  about,  or  hastened,  by  the  direct  political  action 
of  women  is  very  clear.  These  constitute,  largely,  measures  to 
remove  disabilities  from  women  and  improve  the  condition  of 
children,  particularly  homeless  or  neglected  children.  It  is  prob- 
ably true  that  very  few  measures  can  be  named  which  cannot 
sooner  or  later  be  obtained  in  other  countries  by  the  old,  slow, 
indirect  methods;  but  it  is  quite  certain  that  there  is  no  other 
country  which  can  point  to  such  a  series  of  reforms  brought 
about  in  such  a  short  time,  with  so  little  friction  and  with  such 
a  minimum  expenditure  of  energy — energy  thus  left  free  to  take 
up  newer  problems  and  fresh  educational  work.  Among  the 
measures  that  can  be  traced  to  woman  suffrage  within  the  last 
ten  years  are  prematernity  acts,  acts  raising  the  age  of  con- 
sent, family  maintenance  acts,  and  many  acts  improving  chil- 
dren's conditio,ns  by  extending  juvenile  courts,  limiting  hours  of 
work,  providing  better  inspection,  forbidding  sale  to  children  of 
drink,  drugs  and  doubtful  literature. 

A  word  as  to  some  of  the  above.  While  no  English-speaking 
country  goes  to  the  French  extreme  of  forbidding  inquiry  as  to 
the  paternity  of  an  illegitimate  child,  most  of  them  make  the 
position  as  hard  as  possible  for  the  mother  by  doing  nothing  for 
her  in  anticipation  of  the  coming  child's  birth.  A  summons  for 
maintenance  of  the  child  does  not  lie  till  after  birth — that  is, 
till  after. the  time  of  worst  trial,  with  its  often  awful  collateral 
temptations  to  suicide  and  infanticide.  Although,  with  a  mockery 
of  regard  for  the  baby-life,  the  law  indicts  a  girl-mother  for  con- 
cealment of  birth,  should  she  not  make  preparations  for  the  ex- 
pected event,  it  places  in  her  hand  no  instrument  through  which 
she  can  obtain  the  means  to  so  provide  for  the  little  one's  com- 
ing. By  these  Australian  acts,  the  father  may  be  sued  before 
the  child  is  born,  both  for  maintenance  for  the  child  and  for  the 
mother's  expenses  at  the  time.  It  is  .not  that  so  many  cases  are 
brought  forward,  but  the  mere  existence  of  a  legal  enactment 
makes  it  much  easier  for  any  friend  of  the  girl's  to  obtain  prop- 
er consideration  for  her  from  the  man ;  and  the  influence  of  the 
law,  too,  is  felt  even  more  widely  in  its  educative  effect  itpon 
the  sense  of  justice  and  the  ethical  standards  of  the  commun- 
ity as  a  whole. 


58  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Li  Western  Australia,  again,  where  the  women  had  pleaded 
for  years  for  the  raising  of  the  age  of  consent,  no  improve- 
ment was  possible  till  after  the  suffrage  was  granted  to  them, 
when  the  opinions  of  legislators  on  the  subject  of  the  protection 
of  young  girls  underwent  a  remarkable  and  most  sudden  change. 

In  South  Australia,  where  the  women  have  been  longest  en- 
franchised, the  care  of  neglected  children  is  better  understood, 
and  the  oversight  of  such  children  (under  a  state  department) 
better  controlled,  than  elsewhere.  It  was  the  hrst  country  in  the 
world  to  have  a  legally  constituted  juvenile  court.  The  New 
South  Wales  and  Tasmania  courts  were  among  the  first  results 
of  enfranchising  women ;  while  in  Victoria  (where  alone  the 
women  do  not  possess  the  state  franchise)  a  measure  for  es- 
tablishing juvenile  courts  is  still,  after  years  of  agitation,  in 
the   stage   of   a  much-debated   and  very   defective   bill. 

Any  alteration  in  the  relative  industrial  and  economic  status 
of  men  and  women  will  be  necessarily  a  slow  process ;  but,  in 
this  connection,  a  noteworthy  incident  was  the  recent  action  of  a 
federal  senator  in  introducing  an  amendment  to  the  Public 
Service  Act  to  equalize  the  rates  of  pay  for  men  and  women  in 
the  federal  service.  The  significance  of  this  fact  is  not  that 
such  a  proposal  was  made,  but  that  it  emanated  from  such  a 
quarter — not  from  an  eager  suffragist,  but  from  an  average  poli- 
tician, who  was  thus  giving  the  best  possible  proof  that  he  was 
doing  one  of  the  things  for  which  he  had  been  sent  into  the 
house,  attending  to  the  interests  of  all  his  constituents,  acknowl- 
edging in  unconscious  fashion  that,  as  he  in  part  owed  his  elec- 
tion to  women,  it  was  his  duty  to  see  that  his  electors  were 
treated  with  even-handed  justice.  The  principle  has  been  al- 
ready affirmed,  and  it  only  remains  to  be  applied  in  practice. 

That  the  welfare  of  the  general  community  is  subserved  by 
the  cooperation  of  women  electors  is  seen  by  the  adoption  of 
some  more  general  measures,  such  as  laws  dealing  with  the 
drink  traffic,  the  gambling  evil,  and  the  sale  of  drugs  (the  im- 
portation of  opium,  for  instance,  except  as  specially  prepared 
for  medical  purposes,  being  by  federal  enactment  entirely  for- 
bidden, throughout  the  Commonwealth).  On  all  these  points,  the 
experience  of  Australia  during  the  last  ten  years  has  been  the 
same  as  that  of   New  Zealand  for  thirteen  years.     The  power 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  59 

of  the  best  men  in  the  community  has  been  reinforced,  and  the 
hands  of  conscientious  legislators  strengthened  by  the  addition-' 
of  the  woman's  vote. 


North  American  Review.  183:  1333-5.  December  21,  1906. 

Good  Women  a  Majority. 

"All  women  must  be  enfranchised  or  none,  and  the  prospect 
is  not  alluring." — llie  New  York  Times. 

Are  there  more  bad  women  than  good  women  in  the  United 
States?  We  may  safely  assume  that  such  is  not  the  conten- 
tion of  this  distinguished  journal.  The  "unalluring  prospect," 
more  explicitly  stated,  would  be  found  to  rest  upon  the  familiar 
assumption  that  bad  women  will  vote  and  good  women  will  not 
vote,  and  that,  therefore,  the  net  effect  rnust  be  injurious.  There 
lies  before  us  a  report  of  the  results  of  an  inquiry  into  this  phase 
of  the  subject  in  the  four  suffrage  States.  Direct  questions  were 
addressed  to  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Courts  and  presidents 
of  universities  and  colleges,  and  the  summaries  presented  here- 
with rest  upon  the  answers  received : 

Kansas. — "Although  women  do  not  have  full  suffrage  in  Kan- 
sas, they  have  voted  in  municipal  elections  s-ince  1887  and  in 
school  elections  ever  since  Kansas  has  been  a  state.  So  their 
forty -five  years*  of  experience  is  valuable.  The  votes  of  immoral 
women  have  not  appreciably  influenced  elections  in  that  state. 
Abandoned  women  do  not  care  to  vote,  or  register,  or  come  in 
contact  with  good  women  at  the  polls.  Consequently,  they  rarely 
register   if   left   alone. 

"There  have  been  men,  however,  who  attemipted  to  make  use 
of  their  ballots.  In  the  efHrly  years  of  municipal  woman  suffrage 
in  Kans'as  a  candidate  in  a  place  of  8,000  population  fancied  that 
he  could  make  his  election  sure  by  the  support  of  the  immoral 
women  of  the  city,  and  he  did  secure  it.  He  promised  them  pro- 
tection and  certain  immunities,  and  won  them  to  his  support. 
As  soon  as  the  respectable  women  of  the  city  heard  of  it,  they 
organized  to  defeat  him,  and  it  was  not  at  all  hard  to  do.  That 
class  of  women  have  cut  no  figure  in  Kansas  elections  since  that 
experience. 

"In  Leavenworth,  a  candidate  for  mayor  once  had  the  hardi- 
hood to  flaunt  immoral  women  in  a  process'ion  of  carriages  going 
to  the  polls,  expecting  thus  to  disgust  decent  women  with  the  ex- 
ercise, and  so  induce  them  to  remain  away  from  the  polls.  But 
these  only  came  out  the  more  and  taught  candidates  that  the  votes 
of  immoral  women  would  drive  support  from  thos-e  who  sought 
success  at  the  hands  of  the  degraded  class  of  women  voters.  Can- 
didates are  now  extremely  anxious  to  keep  that  sort  of  support 
out  of  sight,  but  it  cannot  be  done  because  these  women  must 
register,  and  close  watch  is  kept  on  the  registration.  It  is  very 
soon  known  if  immoral  women  are  preparing  to  vote  in  any  con- 
siderable  numbers." 


6o  SELECTED  ARTICLES 


Utah. — "In  the  larger  centres  of  population  in  Utah  immoral 
women  have  been  made  use  of  by  the  saloon  element  to  try  to 
influence  the  elections,   but  without  any  appreciable  effect." 

Idaho. — "A  good  many  immoral  women  vote,  probably  a  ma- 
jority, and  their  votes  are  cast  for  that  which  is  evil  if  an  op- 
portunity be  afforded;  but  the  system  under  which  they  are  en- 
abled to  vote  has  such  a  Deneficial  influence  upon  politics  that 
the  effect  of  their  ballots  is  lost.  Immoral  men  and  immoral 
women  both  vote,  and  the  votes  of  both  are  bad.  But  the  votes 
of  moral  women  raise  the  average  of  character  represented  by 
the  ballots  cast.  There  are  so  many  more  good  women  than  good 
men  that  the  system  is  highly  advantageous,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  immoral  women  cast  ballots  for  bad  candidates.  A 
far  greater  proportion  of  good  women  than  of  good  men  can  be 
relied  upon  to  vote  for  the  right  on  questions  involving  moral 
principles.  In  the  flood  of  good  ballots  which  this  gives,  the  bad 
ones  are  submerged." 

Wyoming. — "The  Wyoming  Secretary  of  State,  in  a  letter,  says 
that  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  w^omen  of  Wyoming  vote,  and  ex- 
Governor  Warren,  of  Wyoming,  adds:  'Our  women  nearly  all  vote; 
and  since,  in  Wyoming  as  elsewhere,  the  majority  of  women  are 
good  and  not  bad,   the  results  are  good  and  not  evil.'  " 

Several  years  ago  a  statement  was  published  that  the  women 
of  Colorado  voted  in  large  numbers,  and  that  their  vote  was 
"noticeably  more  conscientious  than  that  of  men."  It  was 
signed  by  the  Governor,  Governor-elect,  the  two  ex-Governors  of 
Colorado,  by  the  Chief  Justice  and  all  the  judges  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  the  Denver  District  Court,  and  the  Court  of  Ap- 
peals; by  the  president  of  the  State  University,  the  president 
of  the  Colorado  College,  the  State  Superintendent  of  Public  In- 
struction, the  Attorney-General,  and  all  the  Colorado  senators 
and  representatives  in  Congress,  the  Mayor  of  Denver,  and  a 
large  number  of  prominent  citizens,  including  eminent  clergy- 
men of  different  denominations.  The  results  of  the  past  two 
years  we  summarized  in  the  last  number  of  this  Review.  There 
remains  to  be  added  the  testimony  of  Judge  Lindsay  of  the  fa- 
mous Juvenile  Court,  who  says : 

"Woman  suffrage  in  Colorado  for  over  ten  years  has  more 
than  demonstrated  its  justice.  No  one  would  dare  to  propose  its 
repeal;  and,  if  left  to  the  men  of  the  state,  any  proposition  to 
revoke  the  right  bestowed  upon  women  would  be  overwhelmingly 
defeated. 

"Many  good  laws  have  been  obtained  in  Colorado  which  would 
not  have^  been  secured  but  for  the  power  and  influence  of  women. 

"At  some  of  the  elections  in  Denver  frauds  have  been  com- 
mitted. Ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  these  frauds  were  committed 
by  men.  without  any  connivance  or  assistance,  direct  or  indirect, 
from  women;  but  because  one  per  cent,  were  committed  by  wom- 
en, there  are  ignorant  or  carless'-minded  people  in  other  states 
who  actually  argue  that  this  is  the  reason  for  denying  women  the 
right  to  vote.  If  it  were  a  just  reason  for  denying  suffrage  to 
women,  it  would  be  ten  times  greater  reason  for  denying  it  to 
men. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  6i 

"People  have  no  right  to  judge  woman  suffrage  in  Colorado 
by  the  election  frauds  in  a  few  precincts,  unless  it  would  be  to 
show  why  suffrage  should  be  denied  to  men  and  restricted  to. 
women.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  only  blow  for  decency  that 
counted  in  the  last  of  a  series  of  bad  elections  in  Denver,  was 
delivered  by  women  voters';  and  the  very  inrportant  good  that 
came  out  of  an  otherwise  questionable  election  was  the  result  of 
woman  suffrage.  The  evil  results  of  that  election  were  in  spite 
of  woman  suffrage;  not  because  of  it,  but  because  of  male  stif- 
frage;  for  had  there  been  no  men  who  voted  at  that  election, 
and  if  the  matter  had  been  left  entirely  to  women,  not  a  cor- 
ruptionist  would  have  been  elected." 

Such  we  believe  to  be  the  facts.  The  reasons  why  prostitutes 
dislike  to  go  to  the  polls  in  the  broad  light  of  day  are  sufficiently 
obvious ;  the  last  remaining  pang  of  shame  springs  from  contact 
with  or  proximity  to  chastity;  it  is,  therefore,  avoided  at  the 
polls  as  everywhere  else.  We  ,now  regard  the  carelessly  repeated 
rumor  of  "failure  of  woman  suffrage  in  Colorado"  as  refuted 
with  sufficient  authority  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt  in  any  fair 
mind. 


North  American  Review.   i86:  55-71.  September,  1907. 

Woman    Suffrage   throughout   the   World.     Ida    Husted    Harper. 

The  two  most  important  events  marking  this  question  as  a 
world  movement  were  the  meetings  of  the  International  Council 
of  Women  in  Berlin  in  1904  and  the  International  Woman  Suf- 
frage Alliance  in  Copenhagen  in  I906.  The  former,  with  dele- 
gates from  twenty  countries,  instructed  by  their  respective 
councils,  adopted  a  resolution  that  "this  International  Council 
advocates  that  strenuous  eft'orts  be  made  to  enable  women  to 
obtain  the  power  of  voting  in  all  countries  where  a  representative 
government  exists."  As  this  Council  comprises  seven  or  eight 
millions  of  the  leading  women  in  the  various  countries,  its  action 
certainly  is  an  answ^er  to  the  oft-repeated  statement  that  women 
do  not  want  to  vote.  At  the  International  Alliance  in  Copen- 
hagen twelve  countries  reported  as  organized  and  working  vigor- 
ously for  the  suffrage,  and  an  international  paper  was  estab- 
lished. Two  countries  have  since  been  added,  and  in  almost 
every  one  where  the  status  of  women  has  reached  any  degree  of 
modern  civiHzation,  they  are  beginning  to  demand  a  voice  in  their 
own  government. 

The  women  of  New  Zealand  have  possessed  the  municipal  suf- 


62  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

frage  since  1886.  In  1893,  the  Parliament  conferred  upon  them 
the  full  franchise  on  exactly  the  same  terms  as  required  of  men. 
There  is  scarcely  a  dissenting  voice  in  the  distinguished  testimony 
as  to  the  good  effect  of  this  on  the  women  themselves  and  on  the 
politics  of  the  country.  At  a  number  of  national  elections  a 
larger  percentage  of  women  than  of  men  have  voted. 

This  situation  is  duplicated  in  AjiSttilha.  The  women  in  its 
six  states  have  had  municipal  suffrage  for  twenty-five  or  thirty 
years.  South  Australia  gave  them  the  full  state  franchise  in 
1895,  and  West  Australia  in  1899.  The  six  states  united  in  one 
Commonwealth  in  1901,  and  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  new 
government  was  to  give  all  women  the  full  federal-  suffrage 
and  the  right— te.,»^it_Jn  the  Jiatlonal  Parliament.  New  South 
Wales  then  conferred  the  state  suffrage  in  1902,  Tasmania  in 
1903,  Queensland  in  1905.  In  Victoria  this  vote,  is  still  with- 
held, having  been  vetoed  fourteen  times  by  the  upper  house  of 
the  state  parliament  after  it  had  been  passed  by  the  lower 
house,  but  indications  now  are  that  it  will  go  through  during 
the  present  session.  At  some  elections  not  only  a  larger  per- 
centage, but  ac]Jially_a_J^ger_nujabfX--Qf  womerLJthan_  of  men 
have  voted.  Last  year  in  Tasmania  women  outnumbered  the 
men  at  every  polling-station.  It  is  also  everywhere  apparent  that 
they  have  roused  the  men  to  a  new  sense  of  their  political  duty. 

Turning  to  Europe,  there  is  the  curious  anomaly  that  in  its 
two  so-called  republics  the  cause  of  woman  suffrage  is  more  back- 
ward than  in  almost  any  of  the  other  countries.  In  Switzer- 
land every  man  over  twenty  may  vote.  A  National  Woman 
Suffrage  Association  has  lately  been  organized  which  is  support- 
ed by  many  public  men.  Its  president  and  secretary  are  mem- 
bers of  Parliament  and  university  professors  fill  other  offices. 

In  France,  all  men  twenty-one  years  old  have  the  franchise. 
The  National  Council  of  Women,  composed  of  55  associations 
with  about  70,000  members,  has  recently  joined  forces  with  the 
National  Suffrage  Union,  thus  assuring  strong  and  systematic 
effort  for  the  enffanchisement  of  women.  In  1906,  a  Commit- 
tee for  the  Defence  of  the  Rights  of  Women  was  formed  in 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  to  secure  the  social,  civil  and  political 
rights  of  women.  A  delegation  of  150  from  the  National  Wom- 
an Suffrage  Union  were  received  by  this  committee  and  permit- 
ted to  make  their  plea  for  a  suffrage  bill  from  the  rostrum  of 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  63 

the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  Its  Chairman,  M.  Jean  Jaures,  assured 
them  that  one  would  be  presented.  The  Socialist  Congress  at 
Limoges  instructed  the  Socialist  members  to  introduce  such  a 
bill. 

The  eminent  Baron  d'Estournelles  de  Constant,  French  dele- 
gate to  the  Peace  Congress  in  the  United  States,  is  a  strong 
advocate  of  woman  suffrage,  as  are  many  other  noted  men.  The 
Catholics,  who  have  always  stood  inflexibly  against  giving  politi- 
cal rights  to  women,  are  now  saying  that,  if  women  had  pos- 
sessed a  vote,  they  would  not  have  shown  the  indifference  to  the 
interests  of  the  Church  that  men  have,  and  Parliament  would  not 
have  been  able  to  bring  about  the  separation  of  church  and  state. 
The  women  have  held  themselves  aloof  from  the  suffrage  socie- 
ties, but  last  summer  the  secretary  of  the  French  Women's  Cath- 
olic League  wrote  a  letter  to  the  International  Suffrage  Alliance 
in  Copenhagen  expressing  deep  sympathy  with  the  cause — a  most 
signiticant  incident.  Some  of  them  have  sent  a  petition  to  the 
Pope,  through  Marie  Maugeret,  editor  of  "Feminisnie  Chretien," 
and  he  has  promised  an  answer.  The  Socialists,  on  the  other 
hand,  claim  that  the  enfranchisement  of  the  working-women 
would  greatly  strengthen  their  ranks,  so  it  is  improbable  that 
this  may  become  a  live  issue  in  France  in  the  near  future. 

In  Belgium,  practically  every  male  citizen  over  twenty-five 
is  a  voter,  but  a  plural  system  gives  two  or  three  votes  to  uni- 
versity graduates  and  to  property-holders.  A  few  years  ago, 
there  was  a  great  uprising  of  the  working-classes  under  the 
rallying-cry,  "One  man,  one  vote."  Some  progressive  women  un- 
dertook to  have  them  demand  "One  person,  one  vote" ;  but, 
although  this  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  Socialism,  they  re- 
fused absolutely.  As  the  aristocracy  is  principally  Catholic,  its 
men  considered  the  feasibility  of  enfranchising  women  in  order 
to  maintain  its  poHtical  power,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  send 
an  agent  to  the  United  States  to  examine  the  effects  of  woman 
suffrage  here,  but  as  the  working-men  have  made  no  further 
■demonstrations  the  matter  has  been  allowed  to  rest.  Miss  Mar- 
tina Kramers,  editor  of  the  international  woman-suffrage  organ, 
was  invited  by  the  University  of  Brussels  to  give  a  course  of 
lectures  last  winter  on  the  franchise  for  women.  The  Congress 
of    Socialist   Women   has    unanimously   instructed    the    Socialist 


64  •  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

members  of  Parliament  as  to  the  introduction  of  a  woman-suf- 
frage bill. 

In  The  Netherlands,  all  men  over  twenty-five  who  own  any 
property  whatever  or  pay  rent  may  vote.  The  movement  to 
obtain  suffrage  for  women  is  well  organized  and  advanced.  The 
National  Council  is  composed  of  30  associations  and  about  that 
many  thousand  members,  with  a  section  for  politics  and  the 
franchise.  The  National  Woman  Suffrage  Association,  over 
twelve  years  old,  is  an  influential  body  including  women  of  all 
classes,  creeds  and  politics.  Its  president  is  Dr.  Aletta  H.  Ja- 
cobs, the  first  woman  physician  in  Holland,  whose  husband  was 
a  member  of  Parliament  for  many  years  until  his  death. 

There  has  long  been  a  favorable  minority  sentiment  in  Par- 
liament, but  the  ministry  was  hostile.  The  Liberal  element  final- 
ly gained  the  ascendency  and  formed  a  coalition  of  forces  whose 
first  act  was  to  create  a  commission  for  revising  the  constitu- 
tion and  broadening  the  suffrage  for  men.  The  Woman  Suffrage 
Association  at  once  appointed  a  committee  to  draft  a  memorial, 
asking  for  an  article  providing  that  women  should  be  admitted  to 
the  franchise  on  the  same  terms  as  men.  The  Prime  Minister 
promised  serious  consideration  and  asked  for  testimony  from 
places  where  women  voted.  The  Commission  has  now  published 
its  recommendation  that  the  word  "male"  be  struck  out  before 
all  paragraphs  relating  to  election  to  office,  six  out  of  seven 
favoring  this  article.  This  would  make  women  eligible  to  all 
government  positions,  even  to  a  seat  in  Parliament.  The  Min- 
istry reserves  to  itself  the  privilege  of  making  all  changes  in 
regard  to  electoral  rights.  The  press  is  favorable  to  extending 
these  to  women,  the  Liberal  and  Social  Democratic  parties  have 
woman  suffrage  in  their  platforms,  and  it  is  considered  almost  a 
certainty  that  the  government  will  put  a  clause  for  this  purpose 
in  the  constitution. 

The  movement  for  w^oman  suffrage  in  Derjmark  was  greatly 
accelerated  by  the  convention  of  the  International  Suffrage  Al- 
liance in  Copenhagen  last  August.  The  excellent  arrangements 
made  by  the  Danish  women,  the  parliamentary  conduct  of  the 
meeting  by  the  president  of  the  Alliance,  Mrs.  Chapman  Catt, 
of  the  United  States,  the  addresses  of  the  delegates  from  twelve 
countries,  gave  much  dignity  and  prestige  to  the  cause.  The 
papers  were  unanimous  in  their  praise  and  declared  that  it  was 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  .  65 

manifest  injustice  to  withhold  longer  the  ballot  from  women. 
Danish  women  are  very  well  organized.  The  National  Council 
comprises  18  national  societies.  The  old  and  important  Danish 
Women's  Association,  formed  in  1870,  has  35  branches  through- 
out the  country,  and  its  aim  is  to  work  for  the  suffrage.  The 
National  Suffrage  Association  proper  has  16  auxiliary  branches. 

All  men  thirty  years  old  may  vote  for  the  Lower  House  of 
Parliament.  The  Upper  House  is  partly  appointed  by  the  King 
and  partly  elected  by  the  large  taxpayers.  Only  taxpayers  have 
the  municipal  franchise.  Women  have  no  suffrage,  and  in  this 
respect  Denmark  is  far  behind  the  other  Scandinavian  countries, 
behind  even  its  own  colony  of  Iceland.  In  recent  years,  the 
Lower  House  has  been  composed  almost  entirely  of  Liberals  and 
Socialists ;  the  Upper  House  remains  strongly  Conservative.  The 
latter  is  willing  to  give  the  municipal  franchise  to  taxpaying 
widows  and  spinsters,  but  the  Lower  House  demands  it  for  all 
women.  Several  times  it  has  passed  such  a  bill,  but  always  with 
a  "rider"  attached  demanding  some  concessions  for  men,  and 
this  has  caused  the  Upper  House  to  reject  it.  The  general  opin- 
ion is,  how^ever,  that  a  liberal  municipal  franchise  will  soon  be 
granted  to  women. 

The  Parliam.ent  of  Iceland  in  1882  gave  to  widows  and  spin- 
sters who  were  householders  or  maintained  a  family  or  them- 
selves, the  right  to  vote  for  parish  and  town  councils  and 
district  boards  and  vestries.  In  1902  they  were  made  eligible 
to  election  to  all  the  offices  for  which  they  could  vote.  The 
government  has  just  announced  that  it  wnll  present  a  bill  for 
their  full  suffrage. 

Germany  was  stirred  from  centre  to  circumference  by  the  In- 
ternational Council  of  Women  which  met  in  Berlin  in  1904. 
The  recognition  extended  by  the  Emperor  and  members  of  his 
Cabinet  and  by  the  Municipality  gave  it  such  great  prestige  that 
all  progressive  movements  among  German  women  received  a 
strong  impetus.  They  have  great  genius  for  organizing,  but  are 
prevented  by  law  in  most  of  the  states  from  forming  any  asso- 
ciations of  a  political  nature,  which  includes  those  asking  for  the 
franchise.  The  German  National  Council  of  Women  is  com- 
posed of  nearly  200  societies  with  about  100,000  members,  and 
yet  they  feared  even  to  adopt  a  resolution  in  favor  of  woman 
suffrage  lest  the   government  should   dissolve  the   organization ; 


66  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

but  they  finally  ventured  to  do  this.  Women  were  prohibited  in 
Prussia  and  many  of  the  other  states  from  attending  political 
meetings ;  but  last  year,  after  their  repeated  protests,  the  Reichs- 
tag abrogated  the  law,  stipulating,  however,  that  they  must  sit 
apart  from  the  men. 

The  Reichstag  is  elected  by  universal  male  suffrage,  but  the 
Bun'desrath,  or  Upper  House,  is  appointed.  In  the  three  ''free 
cities,"  and  in  some  of  the  states  which  permit  it,  women  have 
now  organized  suffrage  associations  and  are  endeavoring  to  re- 
suscitate the  ancient  laws  which  in  various  states  allow  munic- 
ipal suffrage  to  women  property-holders,  and  the  question  has 
gone  to  the  Supreme  Court.  Women  lawyers  have  discovered 
that  the  fundamental  law  of  Prussia  declares  the  right  of  both 
sexes  to  be  equal  unless  exceptions  are  expressly  declared.  In 
the  statutes  relating  to  the  state  and  municipal  suffrage,  only 
"persons"  are  referred  to  and  ,no  exceptions  are  made ;  thus, 
apparently,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  women  are  entitled  to 
vote.  A  League  of  Evangelical  Women  and  a  League  of  Cath- 
olic Women  are  now  demanding  the  suffrage,  while  the  Social 
Democratic  Women,  supposed  to  be  several  million  in  number, 
are  making  it  a  part  of  their  programme. 

The  first  vote  on  woman  suffrage  in  a  German  Parliament 
took  place  in  Bavaria  in  December,  1905,  when  the  constitution 
was  revised  to  give  universal  suffrage  to  men,  and  the  women 
petitioned  to  be  included.  Their  petition  was  supported  by  all 
the  Socialists,  half  of  the  Liberals  and  one-fourth  of  the  Clerical 
party,  but  the  remaining  three-fourths  of  the  last-named  party 
were  sufficient  to  defeat  it.  This  precipitated  a  vigorous  discus- 
sion in  Catholic  circles,  and  their  leading  paper  in  South  Ger- 
many has  declared  within  a  few  months  that  the  laws  of  the 
church  do  not  forbid  the  enfranchisement  of  women,  and  that 
social  and  economic  development  makes  it  desirable.  At  the  last 
annual  meeting  of  the  Socialists  the  women  demanded  definite 
action,  and,  after  a  ringing  speech  by  August  Bebel,  they 
adopted  a  resolution  to  make  this  henceforth  a  part  of  their 
political  struggle.  The  Liberal  party,  after  a  heated  debate, 
refused,  at  the  dictation  of  their  leaders,  to  indorse  a  resolution 
even  for  municipal  suffrage.  There  is  no  immediate  prospect  of 
women's  enfranchisement  in  Germany,  but  the  demand  for  it 
among  the  women  themselves  is  growing  stronger  every  year. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  67 

The  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  women  of  Austria  seem  almost 
insuperable.  It  is  composed  of  seventeen  provinces,  besides 
Hungary;  the  people  speak  at  least  eight  languages,  and  concert- 
ed action  for  any  reform  is  all  but  impossible.  A  law  was 
enacted  in  1852  granting  to  men  the  right  to  form  political  or- 
ganizations, but  specifically  forbidding  this  to  women.  There 
are  many  educated,  capable  and  progressive  women  in  Austria, 
and  when,  in  1902,  they  wanted  to  form  a  national  council,  they 
could  only  get  the  requisite  permission  from  the  government  by 
showing  that  it  was  in  no  sense  of  a  political  nature.  It  is 
composed  of  36  societies  representing  over  13,000  women.  When 
last  year  they  saw  a  measure  about  to  be  enacted  to  grant  uni- 
versal suffrage  to  men  and  to  exclude  all  women,  they  felt 
that  some  action  was  imperative.  They  could  form  independent 
committees  on  woman  suffrage,  which  was  done,  and  they  have 
held  mass  conventions  and  sent  petitions  to  Parliament.  They 
invited  Mrs.  Chapman  Catt  to  come  to  Austria  at  the  close  of 
the  International  Suffrage  Convention  in  Copenhagen,  and  she 
went  in  September,  accompanied  by  Dr.  Jacobs,  president  of 
The  Netherlands  Association.  They  addressed  large  meetings 
at  Prague  in  Bohemia,  at  Brunn,  capital  of  Moravia,  and  at 
Vienna.  Here  every  inch  of  standing-room  was  occupied  in 
the  great  hall  by  people  of  all  classes,  many  members  of  Par- 
liament being  present.  The  addresses  were  followed  by  a  dis- 
cussion of  two  hours,  no  one  speaking  in  direct  opposition.  The 
visitors  were  astonished  at  the  strength  of  the  movement 
throughout  the  provinces. 

The  question  of  granting  the  franchise  to  women  was  several 
times  debated  in  the  Lower  House.  The  Minister  of  the  Interior 
stated  that  the  strong  demonstrations  in  favor  of  it  had  been 
made  a  subject  of  earnest  consideration  by  the  government,  but 
he  doubted  if  it  were  wise  to  make  a  trial  of  it  at  the  moment  of 
so  important  a  political  evolution.  A  few  of  the  radical  members 
favored  it,  but  Dr.  Victor  Adler,  leader  of  the  Socialists,  de- 
clared that,  while  his  party  stood  for  the  equal  political  rights 
of  women,  he  thought  the  reform  entirely  impracticable  at  that 
time.  The  bill  finally  adopted  gave  the  franchise  to  all  men. 
The  first  election  has  now  taken  place  under  the  new  law  and 
has  resulted  in  a  tremendous   Socialist  victory  which  insures  a 


68  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

commanding  vote  in  the  next  Parliament.  The  Committee  of 
Socialist  Women,  with  the  approval  of  Dr.  Adler,  have  proposed 
that,  at  the  coming  International  Congress  in  Stuttgart,  woman 
suffrage  be  made  a  distinct  issue  in  its  programme,  and  it  is 
thought  this  will  be  done.  Now  that  universal  suffrage  for  men 
has  been  obtained  in  Austria,  there  is  a  probability  that  they  wid 
make  an  effort  for  the  enfranchisement  of  women. 

A  petition  for  woman  suffrage  signed  by  24,000  Czecks,  men 
and  women,  sent  to  the  Parliament  of  Bohemia,  has  been  referred 
to  the  next  session,  which  is  to  reform  the  electoral  law.  The 
one  proposed  gives  taxpaying  women  a  somewhat  extended  fran- 
chise, but  excludes  all  women  from  the  municipal  suffrage  which 
it  confers  on  all  men.  The  women  will  insist  upon  having  this 
also. 

Hungary  has  a  National  Council  of  Women  composed  of 
about  70  associations,  and,  soon  after  the  Berlin  meeting  of 
1904,  a  few  who  had  been  in  attendance  there  formed  a  suffrage 
society  which  has  done  an  amazing  amount  of  work.  The  ques- 
tion of  woman  suffrage  had  been  agitated  among  men  since  they 
began  the  struggle  for  their  own  electoral  rights  in  1903,  and 
the  Hungarian  idol,  Francis  Kossuth,  had  declared  that  the  In- 
dependent party  was  morally  bound  to  support  it.  In  a  short 
time,  however,  the  political  situation  became  one  of  indescribable 
chaos,  and  the  women  finally  learned  that  not  one  of  the. "re- 
form" parties  would  take  up  their  cause  when  it  came  to  the 
test.  Lately,  the  Society  of  Women  Clerks,  Bookkeepers,  Stenog- 
raphers, etc.,  numbering  1,500,  has  petitioned  Parliament,  de- 
manding in  the  name  of  taxpaying  women  the  right  to  vote.  A 
great  demonstration  in  Budapest  was  attended  by  women  of  all 
ranks  and  vocations.  Women  took  a  prominent  part  at  the  last 
election,  many  of  the  candidates  publicly  advocated  woman  suf- 
frage, and  of  the  nine  elected  from  Budapest  five  have  an- 
nounced themselves  in  favor  of  it.  By  urgent  invitation  Mrs. 
Chapman  Catt  and  Dr.  Jacobs  extended  their  speaking  tour  to 
Budapest,  where  they  held  three  largely  attended  and  enthusias- 
tic meetings.  One  was  under  the  auspices  of  the  Free  Masons. 
The  electoral  laws  will  probably  be  revised  soon,  and  there  is  a 
vigorous  movement  for  universal  suffrage  for  men.  The  women 
are  preparing  to  press  their  claims  for  inclusion  in  whatever 
measure  may  be  adopted. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  69 

In  Italy,  with  some  educational  and  property  qualifications, 
all  men  over  twenty-one  may  vote  for  the  Lower  House  of  Par- 
liament. The  National  Council  of  Women,  composed  of  over  60 
federated  societies,  in  1904  voted  almost  unanimously  in  favor 
of  both  the  municipal  and  parliamentary  franchise.  In  1905, 
the  Woman  Suffrage  Association  of  Rome  organized  committees  ~ 
in  all  parts  of  Italy  and  began  systematic,  aggressive  work. 
Various  newspapers  have  come  to  their  support  and  a  number 
of  distinguished  statesmen,  jurists  and  university  professors  have 
become  outspoken  advocates  of  the  movement.  The  question 
was  carried  to  Parliament  and  discussed  b}'  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  February  25th,  the  galleries  being  crowded  with  wom- 
en. The  discussion  was  dignified  and  spirited,  both  Conserva- 
tive and  Radical  members  speaking  in  its  favor,  and  finally 
it  was  referred  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  the  most  favorable 
disposition  which  the  regulations  allowed.  It  is  the  intention 
of  men  and  women  to  carry  on  an  active  campaign. 

Russia  had  no  national  suffrage  for  men  until  the  Duma  was 
created  in  1905.  In  local  government  of  the  villages,  women, 
married  and  single,  have  certain  voting  rights  and  sometimes  hold 
office,  as  many  own  property  and  carry  on  business.  When  the 
war  with  Japan  brought  on  the  vast  revolution  and  men  began 
to  strive  for  political  rights,  progressive  women  at  once  threw 
themselves  into  the  confiict  and  made  their  demand  to  be  in- 
cluded in  the  proposed  universal  suffrage.  In  Moscow,  they  or- 
ganized a  Union  for  Women's  Rights  which  affiliated  at  once 
with  the  Union  of  Men's  Associations,  and  later  all  were  merged 
into  the  great  body  known  as  the  Union  of  Unions,  which 
counts  its  members  by  the  hundred  thousands.  They  have  found 
the  desire  for  a  voice  in  their  government  strong  among  all 
classes  of  women,  but  especially  among  the  peasants.  Nothing 
could  be  more  touching  than  the  petition  sent  to  the  Duma  by  the 
peasant  women  of  the  three  villages  of  Tver,  begging  that  they 
should  have  the  same  rights  as  the  men.  "Till  now,"  they 
said,  "even  though  we  were  beaten  sometimes,  still  we  decided 
various  matters  together.  .  .  .  Have  pity  on  us  in  the  name 
of  God !  We  had  formerly  the  same  rulers  as  our  husbands ; 
now  our  husbands  are  going  to  write  the  laws  for  us." 

Alexis  Aladyin,  leader  of  the  peasant  party  in  the  first  Duma, 


70  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

who  has  lately  been  hi  the  United  States,  declares  that  the  press 
despatches  saying  the  peasant  members  were  opposed  to  woman 
suffrage  were  wholly  untrue.  He  says  there  was  not  one  oppos- 
ing vote  or  voice  among  them.  With  the  exception  of  that 
of  the  extreme  Conservatives,  woman  suffrage  has  been  placed 
in  the  platform  of  all  the  political  parties,  Constitutional  Demo- 
crats, Labor,  Social  Revolutionists,  People's  Socialists,  etc.,  and 
women  are  members  of  their  central  committees.  Many  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Octoberist  or  Conservative  party  favor  it.  The 
Zemstvos  and  Municipalities  in  all  parts  of  Russia  have  indorsed 
it,  and  some  of  them  permitted  women  to  vote  for  the  body 
which  elected  members  of  the  Duma.  The  proposed  constitu- 
tion for  self-government  in  Poland  gives  women  the  vote  for 
Zemstvo  members.  A  meeting  of  4,000  university  professors  and 
students  voted  unanimously  for  woman  suffrage;  the  National 
Medical  Congress  of  1,200  Russian  physicians  did  the  same,  and 
there  was  scarcely  a  dissenting  voice  in  the  national  associa- 
tions of  the  various  professions  and  trades  which  make  up  the 
great  League  of  Leagues.  If  the  second  Duma  had  been  al- 
lowed to  finish  its  session,  there  was  a  most  encouraging  pros- 
pect that  it  would  enact  a  law  enfranchising  women. 

An  occurrence  in  Armenia  has  great  significance  as  showing 
the  unmistakable  tendency  toward  equal  rights  for  women.  There 
the  ancient  Oriental  Church,  occupying  a  position  about  halt- 
way  between  the  Greek  and  the  High  Episcopal  Churches,  is 
almost  supreme  in  government.  Last  year,  the  Catholicos,  its- 
venerable  head,  issued  a  proclamation  giving  the  church  a  con- 
stitution and  committing  the  management  of  its  affairs  hence- 
forth to  a  general  assembly  of  delegates,  to  be  elected  by  all 
the  members  over  twenty-one  years  old.  At  once  the  question 
was  asked  whether  this  included  women,  whereupon  he  issued 
a  second  edict  declaring  that  not  only  might  women  vote  for 
these  delegates,  but  they  might  also  be  elected  themselves.  The 
most  influential  Armenian  paper  in  Russia,  the  ''Workman,'* 
published  at  Tiflis,  in  a  column  editorial  expressed  joy  over 
this  act  and  a  hope  that  it  would  lead  to  woman's  political  lib- 
erty. 

The  great  victory  for  woman  suffrage  in  1906  was  won  in  ^in- 
land, when  women  were  enfranchised  on  exactly  the  same  terms 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  71 

as  men  and  made  eligible  to  all  offices,  including  seats  in  Parlia- 
ment. This  gives  the  vote  at  once  to  about  300,000  women 
Preceding  and  during  the  revolution,  in  the  attempt  to  throw  oft 
the  Russian  yoke,  the  women  shared  with  the  men  the  work,  the 
hardships  and  the  dangers ;  and,  when  the  triumph  came,  there 
was  not  a  thought  on  the  part  of  men  of  excluding  women 
from  any  portion  of  the  rewards,  the  most  important  of  which 
was  the  suffrage.  But  they  themselves  had  long  been  preparing 
the  ground.  The  Finnish  Women's  Association  to  work  for 
equal  rights  was  founded  in  1884  by  Baroness  Alexandra  Gripen- 
berg  and  never  ceased  its  efforts.  In  1892  the  Woman's  Alli- 
ance Union  was  organized,  more  democratic  and  aggressive  in  its 
character.  In  November,  1904,  when  the  revolutionary  spirit 
was  surging,  this  Union  called  the  first  public  meeting  for  woman 
suff'rage  ever  held  in  Finland;  it  was  attended  by  more  than  a 
thousand  women  and  hundreds  more  could  not  gain  a'dmission. 
Forty-seven  addresses  of  sympathy  signed  by  hundreds  of  wom- 
en came  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  A  resolution  was  adopted 
declaring  for  universal  suffrage,  and  another,  addressed  to  the 
Diet,  or  Parliament,  demanding  the  full  franchise  and  eligibility 
to  office  for  women.  After  the  vast  national  strike  in  the  au- 
tumn of  1905,  while  a  body  of  leading  men  were  drawing  up  a 
Declaration  of  Rights  to  be  presented  to  the  Tsar,  Dr.  (Miss) 
Tekla  Hulsin,  a  member  of  the  National  Bureau  of  Statistics, 
made  an  eloquent  plea  in  behalf  of  the  women,  and  they  were 
included  in  its  demand  for  universal  suffrage.  When  the  docu- 
ment was  laid  before  the  Tsar,  he  sent  for  Senator  Mechelin, 
leader  of  the  Diet,  to  confer  with  him,  as  to  the  advisability  of 
taking  so  radical  a  step  as  enfranchising  women.  The  Senator 
warmly  advocated  this,  declaring  that  the  nation  demanded  it. 
The  Tsar  signed  it  in  November,  giving  his  consent  to  the  pro- 
posed reforms.  Immediately  the  women  set  to  work,  lecturing, 
organizing,  getting  up  petitions,  and  finally  held  another  huge 
mass-meeting  in  Helsingfors,  demanding  that  the  Diet  carry  out 
this  measure.  All  of  the  political  parties  put  it  in  their  platforms. 
On  May  28th,  1906,  the  Diet  with  only  one  dissenting  vote  passed 
the  bill  giving  the  suffrage  to  all  men  and  women  twenty-four 
years  old.     This  was  signed  by  the  Tsar  on  July  20th. 

The  first  election  has  recently  been  held,  the  women  showing 


^2  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

as  keen  an  interest  as  the  men,  and  in  many  places  voting  in  a 
larger  proportion.  They  were  on  the  executive  committees  of 
all  parties  and  were  placed  on  all  tickets  as  candidates  for  Par- 
liament. Nineteen  were  successful — the  first  women  in  all  time 
to  be  elected  to  a  national  representative  body. 

In  Norway,  since  1897,  all  men  over  twenty-five  years  old 
have  enjoyed  the  right  to  exercise  the  Parliamentary  suffrage. 
The  women  had  been  making  an. organized  effort  for  the  fran- 
chise since  1885,  supported  by  large  petitions.  When  in  1901 
\t  was  proposed  to  abolish  all  property  qualifications  and  give 
every  man  the  municipal  vote,  the  women  protested  vigorously 
against  any  further  enlargement  which  did  not  include  them. 
The  government  finally  abolished  all  property  requirements  for 
men,  and  admitted  all  women  to  the  municipal  franchise  who 
pay  taxes  on  property  to  the  value  of  $75  in  the  country  and 
$110  in  cities.  It  also  made  them  eligible  to  serve  on  common 
councils.  At  the  first  election,  in  some  towns  90  per  cent,  of 
the  women  voted ;  98  were  elected  as  members  of  councils  and 
160  as  substitutes,  and  they  continue  to  serve  on  councils. 

In  1905,  although  the  women  were  barred  from  an  official  vote 
on  the  separation  from  Sweden,  they  took  an  informal  ballot 
and  presented  to  Parliament  nearly  300,000  names  in  favor  of 
separation.  (The  men's  vote  was  about  368,000.)  This  un- 
doubtedly had  a  favorable  influence;  for,  when  they  presented 
their  petition  this  year  for  the  full  suffrage,  and  asked  if  Nor- 
wegian men  would  prove  less  magnanimous  than  Finnish,  their 
question  was  made  a  government  measure.  The  Storthing  could 
not  quite  be  persuaded  to  give  them  universal  suffrage,  although 
a  change  of  fourteen  votes  would  have  done  so,  but  the  Parlia- 
mentary franchise  was  granted  to  all  who  pay  taxes  on  an  in- 
come of  $84  in  the  country  and  $113  in  cities.  Wives  can  vote 
on  the  husband's  income,  and  even  domestic  servants  will  have 
an  income  large  enough  to  entitle  them  to  vote.  About  350,000 
are  enfranchised  by  the  new  law,  and  they  will  soon  have  enough 
influence  in  Parliament  to  repeal  the  property  qualification. 

The  question  of  woman  suffrage  in  Sweden  is  well  advanced. 
Since  1862,  widows  and  single  women  have  had  the  municipal 
franchise  on  the  same  terms  as  men,  and  in  1904  this  right  was 
extended  to  married  women  who  pay  taxes  on  their  own  proper- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  yz. 

ty.  Women  vote  on  matters  connected  with  the  state  (Luther- 
an) church.  The  only  franchise  withheld  is  that  for  members 
of  Parliament.  Sweden  has  had  an  ancient  and  unjust  system 
of  voting,  which  disfranchised  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
men,  but  a  bill  has  just  been  passed  giving  full  suffrage  to  all 
men  twenty-four  years  old. 

Since  1900,  the  women  have  been  well  organized  and  have 
made  a  vigorous  campaign.  They  have  nearly  one  hundred  ac- 
tive suffrage  societies,  and  last  October  the  King  received  about 
fifty  delegates  from  these.  He  expressed  deep  sympathy  with 
their  movement,  but  said  he  feared  the  inclusion  of  women  in 
the  pending  bill  for  enlarging  male  suffrage  would  endanger  its 
chances,  and  he  was  very  desirous  that  it  should  succeed.  They 
then  collected  114,121  signatures  of  Swedish  women  in  all  parts 
of  the  country  to  a  petition  asking  for  the  franchise  on  the 
same  terms  as  applied  to  men,  and  presented  it  to  Parliament.. 
The  government  intimated  to  them  very  strongly  that  in  the 
near  future  it  would  promote  their  claim,  and  a  bill  was  passed 
making  them  eligible  to  all  municipal  offices,  and  removing  all 
tax  qualifications  for  municipal  suffrage.  The  Social  Democrat-^ 
ic  party  have  put  into  their  platform  votes  and  eligibility  to  of- 
fice for  women.  It  is  evident  that  the  way  is  at  last  clear  for 
their  full  suffrage,  but  the  strongest  incentive  towards  it  is  the 
action  just  taken  by  Norway.  The  women  share  equally  with 
the  men  the  rivalry  between  the  two  nations.  They  will  bitterly 
resent  the  fact 'of  Norwegian  women's  possessing  a  voice  in  gov- 
ernment which  is  denied  to  them,  and  it  is  likely  this  feeling 
will  be  shared  by  Swedish  men.  There  is  every  probability  that 
Sweden  will   enfranchise  women  in  the  very  near   future. 

Every  part  of  the  British  Empire  has  some  form  of  woman 
suffrage.  In  the  Isle  of  Man,  w^idows  and  spinsters,  since  i88t,. 
have  voted  for  all  officials,  including  members  of  the  House  of 
Keys,  or  Parliament.  In  the  recent  organization  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  South  Africa,  there  was  considerable  effort  to  se- 
cure representation  for  women,  the  new  Premier,  General  Botha, 
strongly  urging  it.  The  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  would  not 
allow  it  because  of  the  great  advantage  it  would  give  to  the 
Boers,  as  there  are  comparatively  few  English  women  in  South 
Africa.  The  only  concession  made  was  to  give  the  miuiicipal 
franchise  to  the  w^omen  of  Natal. 


74  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

In  all  of  the  nine  provinces  of  Canada,  widows  and  spinsters 
have  had  for  years  either  school  or  municipal  suffrage  or  both, 
and  in  the  Northwest  Provinces  all  women  have  both  on  the 
same  terms  as  men.  The  agitation  for  the  full  franchise  has  had 
able  supporters,  but  has  not  been  very  strong  or  well  organized 
until  in  recent  years.  Last  year  various  suffrage  advocates 
formed  a  deputation  to  wait  upon  the  new  Premier  and  ask  his 
influence  for  a  Parliamentary  Franchise  bill.  They  were  sup- 
ported by  the  Speaker  of  the  House,  the  Mayor  of  Toronto,  the 
chancellor  of  the  university  and  other  prominent  men.  The 
Premier  assured  them  that  they  were  asking  only  for  what  was 
their  right,  but  that  their  position  had  been  assigned  by  the 
Infinite  and  it  was  not  for  a  statesman  to  try  to  change  that  plan. 
The  National  Council  of  Women,  the  strongest  organization  in 
Canada,  has  just  created  a  standing  committee  on  political  equal- 
ity, which  will  cooperate  with  the  Suffrage  Association.  If  Great 
Britain  should  give  the  full  franchise  to  women,  its  Canadian 
colony  could  not  consistently  refuse  it,  especially  with  those  of 
Australia  and  New  Zealand  in  full  possession  of  this  right. 

The  storm  centre  of  woman  suffrage  at  the  present  moment 
is  in  Great  Britain.  When  in  1869  the  municipal  ballot  was 
secured  to  women  by  act  of  Parliament,  and  later  the  district 
and  county  vote  was  added,  it  was  supposed  the  parliamentary 
franchise  would  soon  follow,  but  the  efforts  of  forty  years  have 
proved  unavailing.  The  suffrage  for  men  has  been  gradually  en- 
larged, until  now  only  a  very  small  property  qualification,  or 
the  payment  of  about  one  dollar  a  week  rent,  is  required.  Even 
these  requirem.ents  the  Independent  Labor  Party  proposes  to 
abolish  in  its  Adult  Suffrage  Bill  to  enfranchise  all  men. 

For  a  quarter  of  a  century,  a  strong,  well-organized  National 
Suffrage  Union  has  worked  in  a  thorough  and  systematic  man- 
ner for  the  Parliamentary  franchise.  Its  president  is  Mrs.  Faw^ 
cett,  wife  of  the  former  Postmaster-General,  and  the  president 
of  the  central  or  London  branch  is  Lady  Frances  Balfour,  sister- 
in-law  of  the  ex-Premier.  They  have  held  great  mass-meetings, 
gathered  immense  petitions  and  labored  persistently  in  an  earnest 
but  dignified  way.  Before  the  last  general  election  in  1906,  the 
Union  took  a  poll  of  the  candidates,  and  420,  a  majority,  were 
returned  pledged  to  vote   for   woman   suffrage.       Early  in   the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  75 

session,  nearly  200  members  of  Parliament,  and  many  organiza- 
tions of  women,  petitioned  Premier  Campbell-Bannerman  to  re- 
ceive a  deputation  to  urge  action  by  the  present  Liberal  Gov- 
ernment. He  received  a  delegation  of  about  300,  composed  of 
all  classes,  while  hundreds  marched  up  and  down  outside.  They 
presented  a   memorial   representing  about  400,000  women. 

Meanwhile,  the  Independent  Labor  party  had  become  a  power- 
ful factor,  and  under  the  lead  of  Keir  Hardie  it  stood  for  the 
enfranchisement  of  women.  The  Women's  Social  and  Political 
Union  was  formed  in  Manchester,  as  an  auxiliary  of  this  party, 
to  further  the  interests  of  its  candidates.  Its  founders  were 
ardent  advocates  of  the  suffrage  and  kept  this  question  to  the 
front.  The  great  trades  unions  among  women,  who  for  years 
had  been  sending  to  Parliament  huge  petitions  for  the  franchise, 
gave  allegiance  to  this  new  body.  By  1905  it  placed  woman 
suffrage  before  all  other  questions,  moved  its  headquarters  to 
London  and  invited  women  of  all  political  affiliations  to  join  in 
the  movement.  This  invitation  was  accepted  and  the  militant 
campaign  was  mapped  out,  which  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to 
say  has  startled  the  civilized  world.  While  at  first  all  Great 
Britain  was  dreadfully  shocked,  public  sentiment  has  now  in 
a  large  degree  veered  around  in  favor  of  these  aggressive  meth- 
ods. The  spectacle  of  nearly  200  women  thrown  into  prison  for 
demanding  their  political  rights  has  appealed  to  the  British  love 
of  fair  play.  Petitions  signed  by  73,384  women  textile  workers, 
and  by  133  trade  and  labor  unions  representing  more  than 
100,000  women  wage-earners,  have  been  sent  to  Parliament  ask- 
ing that  they  may  have  a  vote  to  protect  their  interests.  They 
have  stirred  the  old  suffrage  society  to  more  vigorous  action 
and,  a  short  time  ago,  under  its  auspices,  all  classes  of  women, 
to  the  number  of  several  thousand,  factory  workers,  university 
graduates,  clubwomen,  members  of  the  nobility,  marched  through 
the  principal  streets  of  London  and  held  a  mass-meeting  in 
Exeter  Hall.  Now  they  are  circulating  a  petition  for  the  fran- 
chise headed  by  those  prominent  in  all  lines  of  activity,  which 
has  been  signed  by  tens  of  thousands  of  women  who  are  work- 
ing for  support  or  for  the  public  welfare. 

On  March  8th,  the  Suffrage  Bill  came  up  in  the  House.  With 
so  large  a  majority  pledged  in  its  favor,  the  only  hope  of  defeat- 


76  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

ing  it  was  through  the  old  tactics  of  talking  it  to  death.  The 
Speaker  refused  to  entertain  a  motion  for  closure,  and  it  was 
thus  prevented  from  coming  to  a  vote.  Premier  Campbell-Ban- 
nerman  favored  the  bill.  The  Scottish  Liberal  Association,  at 
its  last  convention,  voted  unanimously  for  enfranchising  women. 
There  is  a  strong  committee  in  Parliament  for  advancing  this 
cause  composed  of  seventy  Liberals,  its  chairman  being  Sir 
Charles  McLaren,  nephew  of  John  and  Jacob  Bright,  and  its 
secretary,  the  Hon.  Geoffrey  Howard,  son  of  the  Countess  of 
Carlisle,  so  long  president  of  the  great  Women's  National  Lib- 
eral Federation,  and  herself  an  advocate  of  woman  suffrage. 
Nothing  can  be  done  by  the  Liberals,  however,  while  the  Speaker 
and  most  of  the  Cabinet  are  hostile. 

The  Independent  Labor  party  has  two  grievances  against  the 
Women's  Social  and  Political  Union  which  has  been  making  so 
valiant  a  fight — first,  for  declaring  itself  an  independent  organi- 
zation, inviting  women  of  all  political  opinions  to  its  ranks  and 
claiming  the  right  to  oppose  candidates  of  any  party,  even  the 
Labor,  if  they  do  not  favor  the  franchise  for  women ;  second, 
for  refusing  to  merge  its  demands  in  the  Adult  Suffrage  Bill 
and  insisting  on  a  separate  woman  suffrage  bill.  However,  at 
its  *April  conference,  the  delegates  declared  for  "the  immediate 
extension  of  the  franchise  to  women." 

This  is  the  uncertain  situation  in  Great  Britain  at  the  present 
time.  Meanwhile,  the  National  Suffrage  Society  is  putting  forth 
heroic  efforts,  and  the  "suffragettes"  are  holding  from  twenty 
to  thirty  meetings  a  week  throughout  the  country.  There  is  so 
large  a  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  giving  the  franchise  to 
women,  and  its  advocates  are  so  numerous,  able  and  determined, 
that  the  general  opinion  is  it  will  be  granted  within  a  few  years, 
unless   some   great   Parliamentary   changes   take   place. 

In  Japan,  there  is  an  extensive  agitation  for  more  rights 
among  the  women  of  the  upper  classes.  In  India,  the  cultured 
Parsee  women  are  insisting  on  the  local  suffrage  possessed  by 
men.  Even  in  Persia,  the  educated  women  of  Iran  are  asking 
a  vote  for  members  of  the  newly  established  Representative  As- 
sembly. In  all  the  evolution  and  revolution  which  are  taking 
place  in  various  parts  of  the  world  at  the  opening  of  the  twen- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  77 

tieth  century,  there  is  no  more  significant  feature  than  this  al- 
most universal  movement  on  the  part  of  women  for  a 
voice,  a  vote  and  a  share  in  the  government  under  v^hich  they 
live. 

To  present  adequately  the  status  of  the  question  of  woman 
suffrage  in  the  United  States  would  require  a  separate  article. 
The  conditions  for  securing  it  are  harder  and  more  complicated 
here  than  in  any  other  country,  for  in  all  others  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  win  over  a  majority  of  the  members  of  the  Parliament. 
In  the  United  States  there  are  forty-five  Parliaments  to  be  reck- 
oned with,  and  that  is  only  the  beginning;  for,  when  a  majority 
of  their  members  have  been  enlisted,  they  can  only  submit  the 
question  to  the  electors.  It  encounters  then  such  a  conglomerate 
mass  of  voters  as  exists  nowhere  else  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  under  similar  conditions  women  could  get 
the  franchise  in  any  country  on  the  globe.  Principally  for  this 
reason  they  have  not  succeeded  here,  though  they  have  worked 
longer  and  harder  than  those  of  any  other  nation — almost  than 
of  all  others  combined.  Nevertheless,  four  states  have  fully  en- 
franchised women,  there  is  unquestionably  a  large  favorable  in- 
crease of  public  sentiment  among  both  men  and  women,  and  it 
wxuld  be  quite  possible  to  demonstrate  that  there  are  substantial 
grounds  for  encouragement  and  expectation  of  an  ultimate  gen- 
eral victory.  It  does  not,  however,  tend  to  stimulate  an  Ameri- 
can woman's  national  pride  to  reflect  that  this  may  be  the  last 
of  civilized  countries  to  grant  to  women  a  voice  in  their  own 
government.  And  let  this  fact  he  remembered — it  is  the  only 
one  where  women  have  been  left  to  fight  this  battle  alone,  with 
no  moral,  financial  or  political  support  from  men. 


Outlook.  82:  167-78.  January  27,  1906. 

How  Woman's  Suffrage  Works  in  Colorado.     Lawrence  Lewis. 

Illustrations  of  the  practical  workings  of  woman  suffrage 
have  for  some  reason  been  sought  in  Colorado  by  both  advo- 
cates and  opponents,  although  women  have  voted  upon  equal 
terms  with  men  in  three  other  of  the  United  States — in  Wy- 
oming since  1869,  in  Utah  since  1895,  and  in  Idaho  since  1896. 


78  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

In  New  Zealand  universal  adult  suffrage  has  prevailed  since 
1893.  Yet  most  people  regard  woman's  suffrage  in  Colorado  as 
the  type. 

Let  it  be  clear  at  the  outset  that  the  presence  of  ''the  ladies, 
once  our  superiors,  now  our  equals,"  has  had  no  especial  effect 
upon  the  kind  of  order  and  decorum  maintained  at  polling- 
places  ever  since  the  introduction  of  the  secret  or  Australian 
ballot.  Men  possibly  swear  a  little  less,  but  they  wear  their 
hats  and  use  tobacco  as  freely  in  all  forms  about  the  polls  as 
ever  before.  In  the  best  residence  precincts  in  cities,  and  in 
most  country  precincts,  the  order  is  perfect.  In  some  country 
precincts  controlled  by  corporations  (especially  mining  cor- 
porations), as  well  as  i.n  the  lower  wards  and  in  precincts  "on 
the  border"  in  cities,  thugs  and  election  officials  frequently 
clash ;  special  constables,  deputy  sheriffs  and  even  sheriffs,  as 
well  as  policemen,  often  indulge  in  profanity,  blackguardism, 
and  intimidation.  Ballot-boxes  are  stuffed  and  stolen.  At  the 
general  election  in  November,  1904,  for  example,  the  presence 
of  women  as  voters,  and  as  members  of  election  boards  did  not 
prevent  a  Republican  "woman  worker"  from  being  "thrown 
out"  of  a  polling-place  in  Denver,  literally  "by  the  neck,"  and 
shoved  up  against  a  fence;  it  did  not  deter  a  County  Com- 
missioner in  Pueblo — who  has  since  been  convicted  of  padding 
a  precinct  registration  list  with  fictitious  names — from  intro- 
ducing whiskey  at  the  polls  in  one  of  the  corporation  pre- 
cincts, and  getting  the  election  officers,  watchers,  and  workers 
drunk,  so  that  repeaters  could  be  "run  in"  and  returns  tampered 
with ;  it  did  not  prevent  fights,  acts  of  intimidation,  and  the 
arrest  of  workers  and  voters  of  both  sexes,  of  the  opposite 
political  faith,  by  partisan  police  and  sheriff's  officers  in  various 
parts  of  the  State ;  it  did  .not  prevent  gross  insults  being  offered, 
in  a  few  cases,  to  women,  nor  avert  murders  at  polling-places — 
a  Democratic  election  judge  in  the  Cripple  Creek  district  being 
a  victim.  Although  perhaps  not  as  numerous,  there  are,  never- 
theless, in  both  parties,  women  as  well  as  men  repeaters  and 
"election  crooks."  Challengers  and  watchers  are  as  keen  in 
seeking  and  as  eager  in  taking  advantage  of  technicalities  to 
bring  into  question  the  right  to  vote  of  a  woman  of  the  opposite 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  79 

political  faith  as  of  any  man.  In  deciding  such  cases  the  elec- 
tion judges  consider  partisanship  and  the  law — not  sex. 

Analysis  of  a  few  of  the  many  more  important  phases 
beneath  these  superficials  may  conveniently  be  made  as  an- 
swers to  questions  Coloradoans  are  often  asked :  *'What  and 
how  many  women  vote?"  *'How  do  they  vote?"  'What  change 
in  the  character  and  conduct  of  public  officials  has  been  wrought 
\)y  woman's  suffrage?"     "What  are  the  general  results?" 

Despite  the  efforts  of  both  parties  for  their  own  selfish 
purposes  to  keep  up  the  interests  of  women  in  political  affairs, 
the  ratio  of  female  voters  to  male  voters  seems  to  be  decreas- 
ing. This  is  the  unanimous  opinion  expressed  to  me  by  those 
officers  in  charge  of  the  registration  in  the  several  counties 
whom  I  have  seen.  The  increase  between  1892  and  1894  in 
the  number  of  electors  who  voted  for  Governor  was  87,227.  Now, 
the  interest  at  elections  in  "Presidential  years"  like  1892  has 
always  been  greater  in  Colorado  than  at  the  intervening  biennial 
elections  for  Governor  and  state  officers  only,  like  that  in  1894. 
Moreover,  it  is  generally  conceded  that  the  population  of  this 
state  actually  decreased  during  1894,  owing  to  "hard  times"  and 
the  sharp  decline  in  demonetized  silver.  Consequently  we  may 
fairly  assume  that  at  least  all  of  this  increase  of  87,227  repre- 
sented the  newly  enfranchised  women,  who,  on  this  assumption, 
composed  48  19-100  per  cent,  of  the  voters  in  1894.  Figuring  in 
the  same  way,  the  women  in  Pueblo,  a  representative  county, 
made  up  46  4-100  per  cent,  of  the  total  number  of  voters  for 
Governor  in  1894.  These  estimates  correspond  roughly  with 
the  but  sHghtly  different  statement  of  William  Macleod  Raine, 
who  says,  in  an  article  in  the  "Chautauquan,"  without  giving 
authorities,  that  47  per  cent,  of  the  entire  registered  vote  of 
the  state  in  1894  was  cast  by  women.  The  census  of  1900  shows 
that  women  of  twenty  years  and  over  composed  at  that  time 
but  42  53-100  per  cent,  of  the  total  population  of  the  state  of 
twenty  years  of  age  and  older.  It  would  seem,  accordingly, 
that  when  the  suffrage  was  a  novelty  the  proportion  of  women 
voters  was  slightly  larger  than  the  proportion  of  women  in 
the  total  population  of  Colorado. 

Unfortunately  for  purposes  of  comparison,  no  official  sepa- 
rate  record   has   been   kept   of   the   number   of   women   and   of 


•8o  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  number  of  men  who  respectively  have  registered  and  voted. 
Names  of  both  sexes  are  entered  indiscriminately  in  the  books. 
In  order,  so  far  as  possible,  however,  to  determine  "what  and 
how  many  women  vote,"  I  have  checked  over  the  official  ''regis- 
ters of  electors"  and  the  "poll-books"  in  fourteen  precincts  of 
Pueblo  County,  which  includes  Pueblo,  the  second  largest  city 
in  Colorado,  with  a  present  population,  including  suburbs,  of 
50,000.  I  chose  Pueblo  County  because  in  Denver,  neither  in 
November,  1904,  nor  for  twenty  years,  has  there  been  ail  elec- 
tion that  decent  citizens  of  either  party  would  unhesitatingly 
assert  was  "anywhere  near  on  the  square."  None  of  the  other 
cities  is  thoroughly  representative.  The  polyglot  population  of 
Pueblo  County,  however,  and  the  great  variety  of  industries 
in  which  her  inhabitants  engage,  make  it  possible  to  select 
precincts  that  are  representative  of  almost  every  class,  national- 
ity and  occupation  within  the  state. 

It  is  .noteworthy  that  in  a  number  of  precincts  the  per- 
centage of  those  registered  who  voted  is  higher  among  the 
women  than  among  the  men.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
women  are  to  be  found  at  their  places  of  residence  for  a  greater 
portion  of  the  day,  and  consequently  those  women  who  are 
registered  are,  throughout  the  twelve  hours  the  polls  are  open 
frequently  reminded  of  their  duties  by  men  and  women  precinct 
workers.  In  the  best-managed  municipal  precincts  every  woman 
of  both  parties  who  has  registered  is  reported  as  either  "voted," 
"absent  from  city,*'  or  otherwise  "accounted  for"  to  the  pre- 
cinct leaders  of  the  respective  parties  by  six  o'clock,  an  hour 
before  the  polls  close.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible'  to  do  this 
so  systematically  with  the  men  who  are  away  from  home  at 
work. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  lowest  percentage  of  women  among 
electors  registered,  as  well  as  of  women  in  the  total  who  voted,  is 
to  be  found  among  those  whose  male  relatives  are  artisans,  small 
tradesmen,  unskilled  and  skilled  workmen  of  American  citizen 
parentage,  and  who  correspond  to  the  best  class  of  miners  in 
our  State.  These  women,  as  a  class,  take  but  little  interest  in  the 
ballot,  and  many  of  them  say  they  "do  .not  consider  it  womanly 
to  vote." 

It  is  also  significant  to.  see  how  large  a  proportion   of  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  8i 

registered  Slav  and  Italian  women  vote — they  whose  husbands 
and  brothers  are  the  unskilled  laborers  at  the  great  steel  works, 
precious  metal  smelters,  and  other  large  manufacturing  plants, 
and  who  generally  correspond  to  the  inferior  or  foreign  class 
of  Colorado's  miners.  It  should  not  be  overlooked  also  that 
the  percentages,  both  for  registration  and  voting,  of  these 
foreign  women  are  higher  than  those  for  the  wives  and 
sisters  of  the  skilled  American  mechanics  and  small  tradesmen. 

It  is  evident  that  the  percentage  of  total  registered  electors 
who  are  women,  and  the  percentage  of  the  total  number  of  actual 
voters  who  are  women,  do  not  for  these  recent  elections  ap- 
proach either  Mr.  Raine's  assertion  or  my  own  estimate  for 
1894,  except  in  the  best  residence  precincts.  Too  much  credit 
cannot  be  given  a  majority  of  our  very  best  women  for  the 
manner  in  which  they  have  assumed  their  responsibiHties  of  the 
ballot.  Indeed,  one  of  the  strongest  arguments  of  the  suffragists 
is  based  upon  the  fact  that  in  the  very  best  residential  parts  of 
our  cities  the  number  of  women  voters  more  nearly  approxi- 
mates the  number  of  men  than  anywhere  else.  But  the  next 
highest  percentage  of  female  voters  polled  is  to  be  found  in 
the  precincts  of  brothels  and  female  "rooming-houses."  In  no 
precinct  does  the  number  of  women,  registered  electors  or 
actual  voters,  exceed  that  of  the  men.  The  average  of  all  is, 
however,  far  below  the  percentage  for  the  whole  State  for  1894. 

Men  fail  to  vote  at  primaries  and  at  elections  because  in 
the  press  of  their  occupations  they  "don't  find  time;"  because 
they  have  neglected  to  register;  because  they  have  failed  to 
inform  themselves  about  candidates  or  issues;  because  they 
don't  care. 

Women  are  affected  by  all  these  causes  even  more  strongly. 
For  other  reasons,  furthermore,  that  do  not  influence  men, 
women  do  not  do  their  duty :  Because  "they  are  glad  to  say  they 
let  their  men  folks  attend  to  politics  for  their  families ;"  because 
"their  husbands  don't  want  them  to  vote;"  because  of  timidity 
and  "not  liking  to  go  down  into  a  horrid  crowd  of  strange  people 
and  have  their  names  called  out  in  a  public  place."  When  but 
little  over  twenty-one  years  old,  and  especially  when  unmarried, 
some  women  do  not  vote  because  they  prefer  not  to  admit  their 
age.    In  passing,  it  is  worthy  of  remark  that  a  gallant  legislature, 


82  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

in  refraining  the  law  regarding  registration  to  conform  to  condi- 
tions of  woman's  suffrage,  made  the  provision  that  a  man  should 
be  required  to  give  under  oath  his  exact  age,  but  that  a  woman 
shall  be  required  only  to  swear  "she  is  over  twenty-one  years 
old." 

In  speaking  of  those  women  who  do  not  vote,  we  should  not 
overlook  the  sundry  classes  of  good  women  who  do  vote — the 
"new  women"  who  glory  in  "the  redemption  of  the  sex"  and  the 
assertion  of  their  "higher  place — in  a  wider  and  nobler  sphere 
than  the  kitchen  or  household ;"  the  women  politicians  who, 
though  not  vicious,  are  "in  politics  for  what  there  is  in  it  in 
jobs  and  money;"  the  women,  many  of  them  newcomers  to  the 
state,  who  vote  because  they  enjoy  the  slight  excitement  and 
novelty  of  casting  their  ballots ;  the  women  who  "vote  merely 
to  oblige  their  husbands ;"  the  women  who  "propose  to  assert 
their  independence  by  voting  just  because  their  husbands  don't 
want  them  to  vote."  Many  examples  of  all  these  classes  I 
have  personally  known,  and  also  the  greatest  class  of  all,  the 
good  women,  thank  Heaven ! — those  who  vote  because  they 
know  it  is  their  duty — and  to  many  of  them  an  unpleasant  and 
unsought  duty — because  they  feel  that  they  must  help  to  over- 
come the  votes  of  the  vicious  and  depraved  of  their  sex. 

But  we  have  many  bad  women  as  well  as  good  women,  and 
experience  and  our  figures  show  that,  next  to  the  best  residence 
precincts,  those  containing  the  brothels  and  female  "rooming- 
houses"  poll  the  greatest  proportion  of  women  voters.  Indeed, 
the  hideous  accompaniment  of  woman's  suffrage  has  been  the 
introduction  into  primaries  of  both  parties,  into  registrations 
and  elections  in  cities  like  Denver,  Pueblo,  Cripple  Creek, 
Trinidad,  and  Leadville,  of  this  far  from  small  class  of  females 
from  the  "red  light  districts,"  who  are  more  absolutely  under  the 
power  of  those  who  are  supposed  to  be  the  guardians  of  the  law 
than  are  the  men  of  the  same  grade  of  immorality — the  tramps, 
the  saloon  bums,  the  confidence  men,  the  petty  thieves,  the  keep- 
ers of  low  saloons,  the  gamblers,  the  pimps,  the  procurers.  Owing 
to  popular  attention  and  indignation,  warnings  of  newspapers, 
and  the  action  of  the  courts,  in  neither  of  the  elections  that 
figure  in  our  table  did  the  police  and  county  officers  in  Pueblo 
exercise  as  much  coercion  on  these   fallen  women  as  has  been 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  83 

the  rule  in  elections  in  previous  years  in  Pueblo  and  as  is 
always  done  in  Denver.  Hence  the  percentage  of  women  regis- 
tered who  voted  is  not  as  high  as  usual.  Considerable  coercion 
was  used,  however,  in  Pueblo  in  November,  1904.  Even  in 
April,  1905,  despite  the  exposure  by  a  grand  jury  of  methods 
•employed  in  the  November  and  in  former  elections,  some  co- 
ercion was  employed  to  compel  women  of  the  brothel  precinct  to 
vote  once,  although,  apparently,  there  was  no  repeating  last 
spring.  Indeed,  the  figures  for  the  spring  election  show  up 
conditions  in  the  "red  light  district"  more  nearly  accurately 
than  do  those  for  the  fall  election,  when  this  precinct  included 
a  considerable  number  of  respectable  alien  workmen  and  their 
wives.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  under  ordinary  conditions  and 
under  ordinary  police  administrations  ninety  per  cent,  of  the 
fallen  women  in  our  cities  are  compelled  to  register  and  to 
vote  at  least  once  for  the  candidates  favored  by  the  police  or 
sheriff's  officers. 

But  in  ordinary  times  these  women  are  also  compelled  to 
^'repeat."  In  Pueblo,  in  November,  1904,  as  before  stated,  the 
vigilance  of  the  decent  men  of  both  parties,  as  special  officers 
of  the  district  courts  armed  with  warrants  for  the  arrest  of 
persons  who  might  attempt  to  vote  under  fictitious  names,  pre- 
vented a  majority,  but  not  all,  of  these  thousand  fraudulent 
names  from  being  voted  as  usual  by  "repeaters"  under  direc- 
tion of  the  police  and  sheriff's  officers,  who  in  turn  were  under 
orders  from  "the  gang."  A  former  "city  detective"  or  "fine 
collector"  in  Pueblo  has  been  tried,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to 
a  term  of  years  in  the  penitentiary  for  compelling  an  unfortunate 
woman  to  repeat  her  registration.  He  is  under  further  in- 
dictments for  compelling  the  same  woman  to  forge  fictitious 
names  by  the  hundreds  to  district  registration  sheets,  all  of 
which  names  were  to  be  voted  on  election  day  by  other  fallen 
women,  from  whom  the  fellow  collected  "fines."  Another 
former  "city  detective"  is  under  indictment  for  actually  com- 
pelling unfortunate  women  to  repeat  in  the  November,  1904, 
election,  voting  under  some  of  the  fictitious  names  forged  by 
the  first  woman.  Other  presumably  more  respectable  citizens, 
among  them  the  present  postmaster  of  Pueblo,  the  former 
county  clerk  and  several  of  his  deputies,  are  under  indictment 


84  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

on  equally  strong  evidence  for  being  the  brains  and  purse  for 
this,  which  is  but  typical  of  former  conspiracies  by  which  elec- 
tions were  "carried"  to  perpetuate  the  control  of  the  "gang." 

Our  foreign-born  women  electors  equally  ignorant  and  il- 
literate with  our  foreign-born  men,  who  as  voters  are  so  often 
held  up  for  execration,  should  not  be  overlooked  in  our  ex- 
amination of  "what  and  how  many  women  vote."  One  of  the 
anomalies  of  this  woman's  suffrage  state  is  that  an  adult  foreign- 
born  woman  is  naturalized  and  becomes  a  duly  qualified  elector 
simply  by  the  naturalization  of  her  husband.  An  adult  female 
alien  applying  for  original  naturalization  is  of  but  rare  occur- 
rence in  Colorado.  It  can  be  readily  seen  that  with  this  ar- 
rangement the  naturalization  of  a  single  male  alien  often  creates 
immediately  two  foreign-born  voters.  The  full  significance 
may  thus  be  realized  of  the  fact,  as  reported  by  the  grand  jury 
in  Pueblo,  composed  of  leading  citizens,  six  Democrats,  and 
six  Republicans,  that  "nearly  1,300  foreigners  received  their 
naturalization  papers  during  September  and  October,  1904, 
from  the  County  Court  (of  Pueblo  County) — within  sixty  days 
more  naturalization  papers  to  foreigners  than  had  been  formerly 
issued  during  the  entire  history  of  the  county  (covering  over 
forty  years).  ...  In  many  instances  they  were  issued  to 
aliens  who  had  never  applied  for  their  first  papers.  .  .  .  These 
aliens,  largely  under  the  control  of  padrones  or  bosses,  for  a 
consideration  from  the  political  leaders,  were  rounded  up  and 
taken  into  court  and  demanded  their  naturalization  papers, 
having  all  or  part  of  their  expenses  paid  by  whichever  political 
party  could  control  the  padrone."  It  is  impossible  to  say  just 
how  many  foreign-born  female  voters  were  created  by  the 
naturalization,  in  many  cases  through  fraud,  of  these  1,300  male 
aliens  mostly  of  the  lowest  and  most  ignorant  class  of  Italian 
laborers.    Certainly  it  ran  far  up  into  the  hundreds. 

So  much  in  answer  to  the  question,  "What  and  how  many 
women  vote."     How  they  vote  is  a  different  matter. 

Vicious  women  vote  as  the  dominant  "boss,"  aided  by  the 
police,  or  as  the  police  acting  on  their  own  account,  compel 
them  to  vote. 

Foreign-born  women — the  Slavs  and  Italians,  Greeks  and 
Russians — like   the    foreign-born    men,   vote    for   the   most   part 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  85 

in  the  manner  the  superintendent  of  the  railroad,  mining,  or 
manufacturing  corporation,  or  his  foreman  or  their  agents, 
or  the  subsidized  priest  or  padrone,  tell  them  they  must  vote. 
These  commands  are  sometimes  reinforced  by  money,  or  by 
threats  of  bodily  violence  or  spiritual  damnation,  or  more  often 
by  threats  of  the  kinsmen  of  the  women  losing  their  jobs. 
Women  of  this  class  as  well  as  men  are  told  to  ask  election 
officers  for  assistance — indeed,  most  of  them  need  it — in  pre- 
paring their  ballots,  on  the  ground  that  they  do  not  understand 
the  process  of  voting  or  that  they  are  unable  to  read  or  write 
English.  In  this  way  the  intended  secrecy  of  the  Australian 
ballot  is  violated. 

The  ''new  women"  vote  for  those  who  favor  their  pet 
theories. 

Other  women  vote  in  various  ways.  Indeed,  ridiculous  but 
true  stories  could  be  told  of  how  some  really  conscientious 
ladies  vote.  A  few  days  after  the  election  of  November,  1904, 
for  example,  I  was  talking  with  a  young  married  woman  of  more 
than  average  intelligence,  who  was  living  in  one  of  the  smaller 
cities  of  Colorado,  and  who  declared  "she  never  voted  a  straight 
ticket,  because  she  always  voted  for  the  men."  I  applauded, 
and  asked  if  she  would  mind  telling  me  how  she  voted  and 
why.  "Not  at  all,"  she  replied  earnestly.  "I  didn't  know 
much  about  Roosevelt  or  Parker,  but  in  his  pictures  Parker 
is  much  more  handsome  than  Roosevelt,  so  I  voted  for  the 
Democratic  electors.  I  don't  like  Governor  Peabody's  wife,  so 
I  voted  for  Alva  Adams.  The  Republican  candidate  for  County 
Clerk  wants  to  marry  a  friend  of  mine  and  could  right  away 
if  elected,  so  I  voted  for  him.  The  Republican  running  for 
Assessor  got  my  vote  because  he  is  a  dear  old  man  and  needed 
a  nice  easy  position.  The  Republican  candidate  for  State  Treas- 
urer was  a  Swede  and  I  don't  like  Swedes,  so  I  voted  for  the 
Democrat.  One  of  the  candidates  for  County  Commissioner  on 
the  Democratic  ticket,  they  say,  used  to  run  a  saloon,  so  I 
voted  for  the  Republican.  I  voted  against  the  Republican  can- 
didate for  Sheriff  because  his  wife  got  a  divorce  from  him.  I 
took  my  husband's  advice  regarding  the  other  candidates,  be- 
cause I  didn't  know  anything  about  them  myself."  I  mildly 
asked  if  she  knew  of  the  special  qualifications  of  any  of  these 


86  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

men  to  perform  the  duties  of  the  several  offices  for  which  they 
were  candidates.  She  replied  that  she  had  not  troubled  about 
that,  because  the  reasons  she  had  stated  were  sufficient  for  her. 
Of  course  this  is  an  extreme  case,  but  I  have  come  to  believe 
that  the  things  which  determined  this  really  charming  woman 
in  her  choice  of  candidates  were  of  the  kind  that  appeal  strongly 
to  many  thousands  of  the  women  who  vote  in  Colorado. 

In  rare  instances  wives  vote  differently  from  their  husbands, 
but  I  have  noted  that  in  such  cases  politics  is  a  source  of  more 
or  less  friction  in  the  family.  It  follows  naturally,  however, 
from  women's  usual  place  in  society,  that  they  are  not  thrown 
into  daily  contact  with  men,  and  consequently  do  not  have  the 
same  opportunities  of  learning  at  first  hand  of  the  character 
and  capacity  of  candidates  as  do  their  brothers,  fathers,  hus- 
bands, and  sons,  who  in  comparatively  small  cities  like  those  of 
Colorado  (Denver's  population  in  1900  was  but  133,859)  are  apt 
to  know  personally  or  by  reputation  the  candidates  in  'their  daily 
work  or  business.  P^or  the  proportion  of  women  candidates  for 
office  in  Colorado  is  very  small.  I  believe  it  is  not  an  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that,  realizing  these  facts,  more  than  half  our  women 
voters  depend  upon  the  judgment  of  the  male  members  of  their 
families  in  deciding  how  to  vote. 

Now,  what  change  has  been  wrought  by  woman's  suffrage  in 
the  character  and  conduct  of  our  public  officials? 

Women  themselves  form  such  a  small  proportion  of  the 
aspirants  for  any  elective  offices  except  those  in  connection 
w4th  the  school  that  they  are  almost  negligible  factors.  Ever 
since  the  extension  of  the  franchise  the  State  Superintendent 
of  Public  Instruction  has  been  a  woman.  This  is  the  office 
of  greatest  importance  ever  held  in  Colorado  by  our  new  voters. 
Be  it  said  further  to  the  credit  of  the  successiv-e  incumbents  of 
this  responsible  position  that  theirs  has  been  about  the  only  one 
of  Colorado's  administrative  departments,  from  chief  executive 
down,  the  conduct  of  which  in  the  past  decade  has  always  been 
above  even  suspicion  of  rank  favoritism,  fraud,  or  graft.  Since 
1894  the  office  of  County  Superintendent  of  Schools  has  been 
held  continuously  in  a  number  of  counties  by  women.  Their 
service,  generally  speaking,  has  been  so  eminently  correct  and^ 
satisfactory  that  after   each   election  the  proportion   of   women 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  -.  Sy 

has  increased  until  at  present  they  hold  this  office  in  thirty-four 
of  the  fifty-nine  counties.  Women  have  also  been  elected  to 
other  county  and  city  offices,  but  such  cases  have  been  rare 
and  are  growing  rarer.  A  considerable  number  of  deserving  and 
competent  women  have  clerkships  and  other  appointive  positions 
in  various  departments  of  the  state  and  local  government — 
possibly  a  slightly  larger  number  than  in  men-suffrage  states. 
Although  citizens  in  every  other  sense,  Colorado  women,  by 
custom,  are  not  required  to  sit  on  juries  nor  pay  the  poll  tax. 
Nor  are  they  liable  to  service  in  the  militia  nor  to  call  by  the 
sheriff  to  act  on  a  posse  comitatus.  As  in  cities  elsewhere,  those 
in  Colorado  have  police  matrons,  but,  with  the  exception  of  one 
special  officer  in  Pueblo,  no  women  policemen.  There  are  a 
few  women  lawyers,  but  no  women  judges,  although  there  is 
one  woman  justice  of  the  peace  in  Kiowa,  a  cattle-ranch  county. 
No  woman  has  been  elected  to  the  State  Senate.  The  number 
in  the  lower  house  of  the  Legislature  shows  a  steady  dcline. 
In  the  session  of  1895  there  were  three  women  members  of  the 
House  of  Representatives;  in  1897,  three;  in  1899,  .three;  in 
1901,  one;  in  1903,  one;  in  1905,  none.  It  is  a  subject  of  common 
remark  also  that  there  has  been  in  the  last  few  years  a  steady 
falling  off  in  the  number  of  women  at  primary  caucuses  and  as 
voters  at  partisan  primaries  in  the  respectable  precincts,  as  well 
as  a  corresponding,  and  of  course  consequent,  decrease  in  the 
number  of  women  delegates  to  local  and  state  conventions  of 
the  parties. 

A  very  noteworthy  change  wrought  by  woman's  suffrage  has 
been  the  raising  of  the  requirement  as  to  moral  character, 
judged  solely  by  their  private  lives,  of  men  elected,  especially 
to  offices  in  our  cities.  But  no  corresponding  change  for  the 
better  h-as  been  brought  about  in  the  public  conduct  of  our 
officials.  Before  1893  we  had  in  Colorado  some  men  who  served 
the  people  well  in  their  purely  official  capacities  whose  private 
lives  were  unsavory.  We  formerly  had  the  elsewhere  usual 
city  average  of  saloon-keepers,  some  of  whom  were  honest  as 
municipal  officials.  Since  the  extension  of  the  franchise  to 
women  political  parties  have  learned  the  inadvisability  of  nom- 
inating for  public  offices,  drunkards,  notorious  libertines,  gam- 
blers,   retail    liquor    dealers,    and    men    who    engage    in    similar 


88  <  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

discredited  occupations,  because  the  women  almost  always  vote 
them  down.  This  change  has  been  pointed  to  by  advocates  of 
woman's  suffrage  as  a  great  reform.  Unfortunately,  the  char- 
acter and  honesty  of  our  public  servants,  judged  solely  by  their 
public  services  and  by  their  official  conduct,  has  not  in  general 
been  improved.  Since  1893  we  have  had  as  m.any  men,  possibly 
more,  who  as  officers  are  incompetent,  grossly  partial,  unscrupu- 
lous, and  even  positively  dishonest,  although  as  private  citizens 
they  do  not  sell  liquor  or  engage  in  riotous  living.  It  should  be 
needless  to  say  that  saloon-keepers  are  often  honest,  that  ranch- 
men, real  estate  and  investment  brokers  are  sometimes  dishonest, 
and  that  the  substitution  in  office  of  a  rogue  who  has  been  deal- 
ing in  land  for  one  .who  has  been  dealing  in  liquor  is  not  a 
real  improvement. 

Now,  what  are  the  general  results? 

We  have  seen  that  the  presence  of  women  as  voters  has 
not  improved  the  order  and  decorum  at  polling-places.  In  ad- 
dition to  the  specific  crimes  already  mentioned,  it  will  be  neces- 
sary, in  or-der  to  remind  us  how  impure  Colorado's  elections  have 
^een,  only  to  refer  to  the  surprising  amount  of  election  knavery 
committed  in  all  parts  of  the  State  by  both  parties  in  November, 
1904,  and  exposed  last  winter  in  the  contest  over  the  Governor- 
ship, and  to  the  facts  that  about  thirty  men  in  Denver,  mostly 
Democrats,  were  sent  to  jail  and  fined,  and  that  a  grand  jury 
in  Pueblo  returned  257  indictments,  mostly  against  Republicans, 
all  for  election  frauds. 

Those  of  us  who  have  lived  in  Colorado  and  have  had  the 
opportunity  to  become  acquainted,  not  merely  with  the  noisy 
radicals,  but  with  our  really  representative  women  voters,  are 
not  ready  to  accept  as  accurate  assertions  that,  as  a  class,  they 
have  by  voting  "dealt  a  blow  at  their  womanhood,"  nor  to 
approve  sweeping  indictments  against  their  character  and  mo- 
tives. 

We  have  also  seen  that  extension  of  the  suffrage  to  women 
has,  in  the  long  run,  merely  tended  to  double  the  number  of 
possible,  not  of  actual,  voters.  Among  the  very  highest  classes, 
judged  by  standards  of  property,  intelligence,  and  morality,  and 
among  the  very  lowest,  we  have  added  seventy-five  to  eighty-five 
per  cent,  to  the  number  who  formerly  exercised  the  franchise. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  89 

But  among  the  great  middle  classes,  in  these  respects,  a  very 
much  larger  proportion  of  the  women  than  of  the  men  do  not 
vote.  It  would,  indeed,  appear  that  the  average  character  of 
the  actual  voting  body  has  either  remained  unchanged  ^or  has 
been  slightly  lowered  as  regards  actual  political  intelligence  and 
discrimination. 

Although  rascals  of  notoriously  intemperate  or  licentious 
personal  habits  and  rascals  engaging  in  certain  discredited  forms 
of  business  are  no  longer  so  largely  elected  to  public  offices,  it 
must  be  confessed  that  in  too  many  cases  under  woman's  suf- 
frage the  incumbents  are  rascals  still.  We  have  practically  all 
the  forms  of  graft  and  misgovernment  found  elsewhere.  Wom- 
an's suffrage  seems  to  have  been  neither  a  preventive,  ain  al- 
leviator, nor  a  cure  for  any  of  our  political  ills.  Furthermore, 
in  Colorado's  larger  cities,  and  especially  in  Denver,  lewd  women 
have  been  granted  by  the  police  a  degree  of  license  not  accorded 
them,  so  far  as  I  can  learn,  in  any  other  part  of  America.  Is 
it  unfair  to  assume  that  this  is  part  of  the  price  paid  by  bosses 
and  police  in  our  cities  for  the  extreme  activity  of  these  women 
in  primaries  and  elections?  It  would,  however,  be  as  absurd 
to  assume  that  all  the  debauchery  of  'Our  public  service  in  many 
fieMs  is  due  to  women*voters  as  to  assert  that  they  have  im- 
proved our  local  and  state  government. 

Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  the  woman's  suffragists  in  gen- 
eral tacitly  admit  that  there  have  been  no  practical  reforms  or 
other  important  or  positive  results  in  Colorado,  because  they 
who  urged  the  adoption  of  their  experiment  for  reasons  of 
justice  and  expediency  now  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  praise 
its  operation  on  grounds  of  justice  only.  Voting,  they  say,  is 
one  of  woman's  natural  rights,  from  the  exercise  of  which 
tyrannical  man  long  prevented  her.  They  ask,  "Would  you  in 
justice  refuse  the  intelligent  and  refined  women  of  your  family 
the  franchise  you  give  so  freely  to  illiterates  and  miserable, 
often  criminal,  foreigners  and  negroes?"  They  assume  that  one 
approves  of  allowing  the  men  of  all  these  classes  to  vote  without 
restriction,  and  they  forget  that  these  illiterates,  foreigners, 
and  negroes  have  women  in  their  families.  That  all  the  women 
even  of  Colorado  do  not  regard  voting  as  among  their  ".natural 
rights"  is   shown   by  the   flat  and   oftentimes   indignant   refusal 


90  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

by  many  to  vote  at  all,  and  by  the  manner  in  which  such  a  large 
proportion  of  the  others  look  upon  voting  as  an  unpleasant,  irk- 
some and  unsought  duty. 


Outlook.  91:  573.  March  13,  igog. 

Sweden   Gives   Women   Parliamentary   Franchise. 

Sweden  has  joined  Finland  in  extending  the  ballot  to  women; 
by  a  majority  in  both  Houses  of  the  Swedish  Diet  all  persons 
who  have  attained  a  certain  age  and  who  meet  other  conditions 
are,  without  distinction  to  sex,  entitled  to  exercise  the  Parlia- 
mentary franchise.  A  well-informed  contributor  to  The  Out- 
look, after  the  extension  of  the  suffrage  to  women  in  Finland, 
pointed  out  the  special  conditions  in  that  country  and  the  work 
done  by  women  in  its  public  life  as  explaining  the  extension  of 
the  suffrage.  This  action  on  the  part  of  Sweden  is  undoubtedly 
the  most  important  yet  taken  in  connection  with  the  woman's 
suffrage  movement.  Finland  is  a  Russian  province ;  but  Sweden 
is  an  independent  country  in  which  the  people  are  notable  for 
inteUigence  and  for  gentleness  of  manners  they  are  also,  or 
were  until  lately,  a  conservative  people.  Americans  will  be  inter- 
ested in  knowing  why  this  peaceful  revolution  has  been  brought 
about  in  such  a  slow-moving  country  as  Sweden,  and  why  a 
departure  from  the  ancient  tradition  and  policy  of  the  country 
has  been  effected  with  so  little  preliminary  blowing  of  trumpets; 
possibly  because  there  has  been  no  suffragette  movement  among 
the  Swedes.  This  action  of  Sweden  is  in  line  with  that  of 
Norway,  where  about  three-fifths  of  the  women  of  the  country 
vote  for  members  of  Parliament,  and  a  recommendation  has 
been  made  by  the  Royal  Counsel  to  extend  the  suffrage  so  as  to 
include  all  women. 

Outlook.  g5:  117-22.  May  21,  igio. 

Where  the  Women  Vote.    Paul  Kennaday. 

"How  does  it  feel  to  be  an  enfranchised  woman?"  I  asked 
a  New  Zealand  woman  one  day  shortly  after  my  arrival  in  her 
daring   little    land    of    successful    big    experiments.      "And   how 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  91 

does  it  feel  to  be  an  enfranchised  man?"  was  the  wise  and 
complete  answer  to  my  rather  silly  joke. 

And  thereafter,  traveling  slowly  but  safely  up  and  down  her 
thousand-mile  narrow  strip  of  island  country  on  state  railways, 
eating  state-reared  oysters  and  state-certified  mutton,  butter, 
and  cheese,  toasting  my  feet  over  state-mined  coal,  served  by 
waiters  earning  a  state-fixed  wage,  buying  in  state-inspected 
shops,  visiting  large  state  "bursted.  up"  estates,  escaping  the 
wiles  of  state  life  insurance  company  agents,  and  tempted  to 
prolong  my  stay  in  "God's  Own  Country"  until  qualified  for  a 
state's  old  age  pension — during  these  months  not  once  w^as  en- 
countered a  reference  to  votes  for  women  on  trains,  stage- 
coaches, or  boats,  from  the  pulpit,  in  clubs,  trades  halls,  or  in 
the  press. 

The  subject  is  simply  one  no  more  discussed  in  New  Zealand, 
except  an  inquisitive  traveler  comes  along  from  "the  states"  or 
from  "home" — as  England  still  is  in  name  even  to  the  men  and 
w^omen  born  and  brought  up  in  New  Zealand.  It  is  far  from 
old  England  and  far  from  current  English  ways,  indeed,  this 
new  country  of  New  Zealand.  No  prisons  and  hunger  strikes 
here,  no  leagues  of  militant  suffragettes,  nor  pickets  before  the 
gates  of  Parliament.  New  Zealand  men  gave  the  vote  to  women 
almost  without  the  asking,  sixteen  years  ago.  And  when  they 
did  this,  typically  enough  of  their  temper,  they  placed  the  adult 
native  Maori  women  on  the  same  footing  as  the  Maori  men  in 
respect  of  the  franchise.  So  that  the  four  Maori  members  of 
Parliament  are  now  returned  by  the  votes  of  all  the  adults, 
male  and  female  of  their  tribes. 

As  far  back  as  1878  the  Liberal,  or  Progressive  party,  as  it 
was  called,  then  for  the  first  time  in  office,  brought  forward 
a  bill  to  extend  the  right  to  vote  for  members  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  to  women  rate-payers,  who  already  had  the 
franchise  in  municipal  elections.  At  that  time  members  were,  in 
general,  unwilling  to  grant  what  had  been  then  seriously  con- 
sidered by  but  few  in  the  colony  except  a  small  group  of  en- 
thusiastic advocates.  Nine  years  later,  however,  a  coalition  gov- 
ernment then  in  power  advanced  the  question  to  the  point  of 
moving  in  Parliament  a  bill  extending  the  suffrage  to  women. 
But  again  the  opponents  of  the  reform  were  the  stronger,  and 


92  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  bill  went  no  further  than  a  secoqcl  reading  and  an  adverse 
consideration  in  committee. 

Then  for  some  years  little  more  attention  was  paid  to  the 
matter.  Hard  times  were  testing  the  colonists,  and  feeling  was 
running  high  on  the  all-important  subject  of  land  holdings  and 
land  taxation.  What  has  gone  down  in  New  Zealand  history 
as  the  Great  Maritime  Strike  for  a  brief  space  brought  the 
shipping  of  the  islands  to  a  standstill  in  1890  and  solidified  the 
growing  radical  discontent  of  the  wage-earners.  Intense  and 
bitter  resentment  pervaded  the  minds  of  the  workingmen  as 
a  result  of  the  complete  defeat  of  the  dockers  and  seamen  at 
the  hands  of  a  united  class  of  employers.  In  the  turmoil  of 
party  and  class  strife  of  those  years  men  gave  little  consideration 
to  the  rights  of  women.  Nor  were  the  women  much  inclined 
to  push  their  own  claims. 

But  widespread  discontent  with  the  old  order  of  things 
brought  in  the  Progressive  party  with  a  good  working  majority 
in  1891,  and,  all  unsuspected  and  unheralded,  woman's  emanci- 
pation was  at  hand.  The  lower  house,  having  now  in  it  a 
strong  labor  element,  suddenly  adopted  the  Electoral  Bill  be- 
fore them,  with  an  amendment  giving  to  all  adult  women  the 
right  to  vote.  But  the  still  Conservative  upper  house  held  out. 
The  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  then  took  a  hand 
in  support  of  the  bill,  and  then  a  real  struggle  was  on,  with 
the  Prohibitionists  and  Liberals  for  a  time  banded  against  the 
Conservative  opposition.  At  this  point  dissensions  between  the 
Liberals  and  Prohibitionists  broke  out,  and  many  of  the  Opposi- 
tion favored  the  passage  of  the  bill,  thinking  thus  to  add  to  the 
difficulties  of  the  government  forces  by  increasing  the  enmity 
of  the  liquor  trade  toward  them.  At  last  by  a  majority  of  two, 
the  bill  was  passed,  and  so,  in  the  fall  of  1893,  almost  without 
effort,  certainly  without  stones  and  pickets  and  arrests,  the  right 
to  vote  was  given  to  New  Zealand  women  by  New  Zealand   men. 

Prophecy  ran  riot  at  the  time  over  the  effect  enfranchisement 
would  have  upon  women,  upon  men,  and  upon  the  legislation  of 
the  colony.  One  side  set  forth  that  the  franchise  would  trans- 
form unreasonable  woman  into  a  reasoning  voter,  casting  her 
ballot  with  a  heavy  sense  of  awful  responsibility,  that  at  once  the 
whole  tone  of  politics  would  be  refined,  and  that  men  as  well 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  93 

as  women  would  have  no  other  thought  than  the  public  good. 
Others  predicted  a  race  of  mannish  women,  homes  abandoned, 
children  neglected,  politicians  returned  to*  office  who  best  had 
appealed  to  feminine  foibles.  Woman's  place  was  in  the  home 
and  with  her  children,  they  said,  and  the  field  of  politics  should 
be  left  free  to  the  men — just  as  the  men  are  saying  in  England 
and  in  America  to-day. 

A  good  deal  of  wild  talk  was  indulged  in  on  both  sides,  but 
events  seem  to  have  refuted  all  the  prophets.  With  the  single 
exception  of  the  license  question,  it  is  more  than  doubtful 
whether  in  New  Zealand  any  tangible  results,  good  or  evil,  can 
be  attributed  to  the  political  enfranchisement  of  women. 

The  game  of  politics  seems  to  be  played  in  the  same  old  way 
as  before,  there  as  everywhere  else.  Neither  Parliamentary  de- 
bates nor  the  debaters  have  been  raised  above  the  very  ordinary 
level  of  pre-femi.nine  voting.  In  fact,  more  than  one  survivor 
of  the  early  Parliaments  recalls  now  sadly  those  good  old  days 
when  "Hansard"  bristled  with  Latin  and  Greek  quotations,  and 
when  speeches  prepared  with  great  pains  were  delivered  with 
studied  care.  But  the  wisdom  of  the  ancients  and  the  literary 
finish  of  a  past  generation  have  now  given  way  before  repre- 
sentatives of  the  wider  constituencies  of  these  times,  labor 
leaders,  merchants,  and  lawyers,  whose  only  lapse  from  plain 
English  is  when  they  drop  into  that  barbarous  admixture  of 
Cockney  and  Yankee  the  traveler  recognizes  as  "Australian." 
On  all  hands  it  has  been  admitted,  however,  that  it  has  been 
the  payment  of  members,  and  not  the  votes  of  women  that  has 
brought  the  speeches  in  Parliament  down  from  their  former 
Olympian  heights  to  the  level  of  present  common  understanding. 
For  this  reform  it  was  that  made  it  financially  possible  for 
poorer  and  less  cultured  men  to  oppose  and  supplant  the  rich 
rum-holders  and  university  graduates  who  formerly  held  sway 
in  the  councils  of  New  Zealand. 

Nor  does  it  appear  that  the  polling  and  electioneering  in  the 
times  when  men  only  voted  were  any  different  in  tone  from 
the  orderly,  sober  family  affair  they  are  now.  Women  go  to 
the  polls  alone,  or  with  their  husbands,  fathers,  or  brothers,  and 
vote  without  annoyance  or  intimidation  according  as  their  con- 
sciences dictate  or  their  whims  decide,  quite  as  do  their  men- 


94'  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

folk.  But  elections  in  New  Zealand  never  were  marked  by 
drunkenness  and  disgraceful  scenes  such  as  sometimes  occur 
in  large  American  cities.  The  whole  spirit  and  nature  of  New 
Zealand  is  against  that  sort  of  thing.  There  are  no  big  cities 
there,  for  one  thing,  with  their  slums  and  lodging-house  re- 
peaters ;  nor  are  there  rich  interests  seeking  to  debauch  the 
electorate  with  bribes.  Wellington,  the  capital,  has  but  58,000 
inhabitants,  and  Christchurch,  Dunedin,  and  Auckland  are  the 
only  other  municipalities  of  over  30,000.  Then  there  are  but 
five  other  cities  of  over  6,000  and  less  than  10,000  inhabitants 
each,  and  nine  just  passing  the  five  thousand  mark.  The  re- 
mainder of  the  scant  million  New  Zealanders,  men,  women,  and 
children,  European  and  native  Maori,  live  in  small  towns  or 
hamlets,  or  are  scattered  on  farms  and  sheep-runs  over  the 
North  and  South  Islands,  which  form  the  two  principal  di- 
visions of  the  colony,  lately  turned  Dominion.  It  is  a  homogen- 
eous and  literate  population,  and,  except  in  the  four  principal 
cities,  almost  wholly  engaged  in  agriculture  and  pastoral  pur- 
suits. While  party  feeling  may  at  times  run  high  with  them, 
there  is  no  opportunity  for  gangs  and  floaters,  intimidation,  and 
stuffed  ballot-boxes.  So  the  women  had  not  much  to  reform 
on  this  score. 

When  it  comes  to  the  "Socialistic"  legislation  that  has  made 
New  Zealand  famous,  one  is  on  debatable  ground  with  the  ad- 
vocates of  votes  for  women.  Certainly  women  have  votes  in 
New  Zealand,  and  certainly  since  they  have  had  votes  much 
progressive  legislation  has  been  passed  in  New  Zealand.  Ergo, 
votes  for  women.  But  by  the  same  easy  post  hoc  propter  hoc 
method  we  may  attribute  to  the  enfranchisement  of  women  the 
fall  in  the  birth  rate  in  New  Zealand  from  40.78  per  1,000  of 
the  population  in  1880  to  27.30  in  1907;  or,  again,  that  whereas 
at  the  time  when  women  gained  the  ballot  there  was  an  excess 
of  1,786  spinsters  over  bachelors  in  the  colony,  the  census  of 
1906  shows  the  bachelors  to  outnumber  the  spinsters  by  9,633. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  general  birth  rate  and  the  size  of 
families  has  declined  in  New  Zealand  as  it  has  in  other  parts 
of  the  civilized  world,  and  from  a  diversity  of  causes  in  which 
it  would  be  impossible  to  assign  any  specified  part  to  the  fact 
that   New  Zealand  women  now  have   an  interest  in   affairs   of 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  95 

state  added  to  their  former  cares  as  mothers.  If  the  point  is 
pressed  that  the  increased  comforts,  complexities,  and  wider 
cares  of  these  later  days  are  but  poor  compensation  for  the 
failure  of  women  to  bear  the  numerous  progeny  their  mothers 
and  grandmothers  considered  enjoined  upon  them,  the  New  Zea- 
land mother  of  to-day  may  fairly  retort  that  what  children  she 
does  have  she  at  least  preserves.  Seventy-three  infants  only 
under  one  year  of  age  now  die  out  of  every  1,000  born  in  New. 
.  Zealand,  as  compared  with  326  per  thousand  in  Chile,  268  in 
Russia,  196  in  Prussia,  223  in  Austria,  149  in  France,  147  in 
England   and  Wales,   and   149  in  the   United   States. 

Although  there  is  plausibility  in  this  contention  that  women 
by  their  votes  have  either  hastened  or  materially  affected  the 
legislation  for  the  common  good  in  New  Zealand,  facts  and 
the  general  consensus  of  opinion  in  New  Zealand  fail  to  estab- 
lish this  claim  as  well  founded.  The  Liberal  or  Progressive 
party  that  gave  the  vote  to  women  in  1893  was  well  committed  to 
reform  measures  all  along  the  line  when,  under  the  leadership 
of  Balance,  it  came  into  power  in  1891  in  the  wake  gf  the  Great 
Maritime  Strike  and  the  land  and  labor  disputes  over  which  the 
colony  was  then  divided.  After  the  death  of  Balance  in  1893, 
*'Dick"  Seddon,  "King  Dick,"  succeeded  to  his  former  chief's 
position,  and  for  thirteen  years  absolutely  dominated  New 
Zealand  and  its  policy. 

His  was  the  master  mind  holding  obstreperous  factions  to- 
gether, forcing  through  by  sheer  strength  of  will  and  body 
measures  he  believed  to  be  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  at 
large.  By  his  alluring  personality  as  well  as  by  his  knowledge 
and  genuine  appreciation  of  the  working  class,  of  which  he  was 
himself  a  member,  he  held  a  place  in  the  affections  and  the  con- 
fidence of  New  Zealanders  which  no  one  before  or  since  has 
approached.  He  gathered  about  him  men  of  some  ability,  took 
what  was  of  value  in  their  suggestions,  adapted  them  to  his 
need,  and  received  from  a  grateful  public  about  all  the  credit. 
He  knew  how  to  insure  the  passage  of  land  reforms  and  labor 
legislation  by  the  promise  of  road  improvements  and  bridges, 
and  could  carry  out  threats  to  withhold  patronage  and  public 
moneys  from  districts  returning  opposition  members.  If  he  was 
something  of  a  demagogue  and  not  much  of  a  democrat,  at  least 


96  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

he  genuinely  wanted  to  be  a  kind  friend  to  the  people  he  perhaps 
debauched.  He  was  sincere  in  his  desire  so  to  improve  the 
conditions  of  life  for  the  small  farmers  and  workingmen  that 
New  Zealand  might  in  truth  be  what  with  his  splendid  optimism 
he  first  christened  it — God's  Own  Country.  Big  and  burly,  with 
the  strength  of  ten,  he  outlasted  and  outwitted  his  opponents. 
Had  he  lived  in  America,  Seddon  probably  would  have  been  our 
most  notable,  and  withal  our  most- honest  boss.  In  New  Zea- 
land he  worked  himself  up  from  miner  and  publican  to  Premier, 
and  held  that  office  until  his  death  in  harness  in  1906. 

It  was  the  Seddon  government  which  brought  forth  or  mate- 
rially amended  very  many  of  the  more  advanced  legislative  en- 
actments now  on  the  statute-books  of  New  Zealand.  And 
perhaps  woman's  innate  conservatism,  that  Seddon  used  to  talk 
about,  was  a  check  to  him.  in  some  of  his  state  experiments. 
Or,  as  he  himself  preferred  to  interpret  it,  perhaps  it  has  been 
woman's  conservatism  that  has  prevented  changes  of  policies, 
and  that  has  continued  in  power  from  1891  to  to-day  the  Pro- 
gressive party,  which  first  gave  to  her  the  vote. 

But,  on  the  whole,  the  opinion  of  New  Zealand  men  and 
women  themselves  is  that  women  since  they  have  had  the  fran- 
chise have  had  a  clear  and  direct  influence  on  very  few  political 
measures  aside  from  the  single  one  of  temperance  reform.  In 
that  they  have  taken  a  decided  stand,  and,  with  their  Woman^s 
Christian  Temperance  Union  propaganda  and  their  votes,  they 
have  succeeded  in  creating  a  well-marked  and  slowly  growing 
public  sentiment  in  favor  of  further  restriction  on  the  issuance 
of  licenses  to  public-houses.  To  such  an  extent  is  this  so  that 
on  the  three  questions  submitted  for  local  option  at  the  triennial 
state  elections — continuance  of  existing  licenses,  reduction,  and 
no  license — the  total  votes  recorded  in  favor  of  no  license  have, 
of  late,  been  greater  than  the  numbers  recorded  for  either  of 
the  other  two,  though  attaining  in  but  a  few  districts  the  three- 
fifths  of  all  the  votes  cast  which  are  necessary  to  affect  the 
number  of  licenses  issued. 

Graduated  taxes  on  income  and  on  improved  real  estate 
values,  the  "bursting  up"  of  large  estates  for  the  benefit  of 
small  tenants,  advances  to  settlers,  compulsory  arbitration,  with 
its  adjunct  of  state-fixed  wages,  shops'  regulation,  old  age  pen- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  97 

sions,  and  industrial  accident  insurance ;  state  railways,  posts, 
telephones,  and  post-office  savings  banks,  state  life  and  fire  in- 
surance— in  the  enactment  of  none  of  these  measures  can  the 
inflifence  of  women's  votes  be  found.  And  though  it  is  not 
susceptible  of  proof  that  the  votes  of  women  have  not  helped 
to  preserve  this  liberal  legislation  or  to  amend  it  so  as  to  en- 
large its  scope  and  usefulness,  an  acquaintance  with  the  trend 
of  opinion  among  New  Zealand  rt^en,  be  they  employers  or  em- 
ployees, factory  workers  or  pastoralists,  leaves  the  decided  im- 
pression that  state  aid  and  regulation  is  regarded  by  the  male 
voter  of  New  Zealand  as  a  proper  and,  indeed,  essential  func- 
tion of  government. 

With  or  without  the  votes  of  women,  Seddon  and  his  suc- 
cessor, Sir  Joseph  Ward,  still  would  have  been  kept  in  office 
by  men  who  had  faith  in  them  and  whose  desires  these  astute 
politicians  understood  and  catered  to. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  franchise  has  wrought  any  no- 
ticeable metamorphosis  in  the  minds  or  manners  of  New  Zea- 
land women,  or  of  their  enfranchised  sisters  in  Australia.  Like 
their  less  fortunate  English  and  American  cousins,  these  women 
still  find  their  chief  occupation  and  interest  in  looking  after  their 
husbands  and  children  and  in  the  petty  details  of  housekeeping. 
They  do  not  hold  public  office  even  in  New  Zealand,  and  but  a 
small  number  of  them  are  in  the  professions  or  business.  Only 
eighteen  per  cent,  of  them  are  breadwinners.  Still  the  men  to 
an  overwhelming  proportion  go  out  into  the  world  of  work  and 
ideas  and  the  women  stay  behind  to  the  work  that  is  never  done, 
to  the  keeping  of  the  house  and  to  the  sphere  in  which  it  has 
pleased  men  to  place  them.  Spite  of  her  equality  with  man  as 
a  voter,  the  woman  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand  is  still 
economically  dependent  upon  man,  and  with  the  maintenance 
she  receives  from  father,  husband,  or  brother  she  but  naturally 
takes  at  the  same  time  most  of  the  ideas  she  has  of  politics  and 
parties. 

But  in  a  new  and  thinly  populated  country  where  there  are 
no  people  of  great  wealth  and  very  few  of  no  means,  women 
of  the  "leisure  class"  are  as  rare  as  those  unfortunates  whom 
the  maladjustments  and  iniquities  of  older  systems  of  society 
force    upon    the    streets.      Class    distinctions    have    not    become 


98  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

marked,  and,  vote  or  no  vote,  a  certain  independence  of  char- 
acter is  developed,  and  a  practical  ability  to  help  herself  is  ob- 
servable in  the  New  Zealand  woman  as  it  is  across  the  sea  in 
those  parts  of  Australia  where  she  has  but.  very  recently  been 
•  poHtically  enfranchised.  She  has  piore  nearly  the  pioneer  spirit 
which  has  distinguished  our  own  American  women  than  the  sex- 
conscious  feeling  of  the  English  suffragette. 

The  fears  that  women  would  be  dominated  by  priestly  in- 
fluences have  proved  entirely  groundless  in  New  Zealand. 
There  is  absolutely  no  evidence  that  such  is  the  fact.  In  New 
South  Wales  and  Queensland  a  certain  division  along  sectional 
lines  was  noticed,  but  nothing  which  was  evidence  of  interfer- 
ence by  the  church.  Roman  Catholics  in  certain  districts  of 
Sydney,  for  instance,  will  return  no  candidates  but  Roman  Catho- 
lics, and  state  aid  for  parochial  schools  is  a  part  of  their  plat- 
form, but  they  are  none  the  less  independent  voters  and  free  of 
undue  influence  from  their  spiritual  advisers.  Political  managers 
were  merely  wise  enough  to  work  along  the  line  of  least  re- 
sistance and  to  put  before  working  class  electorates,  largely  com- 
posed of  Roman  Catholics,  candidates  of  the  same  church  and 
class.  To  be  sure,  the  Roman  Catholic  church  was  wise  enough 
also  not  to  lose  its  followers  by  opposing  their  political  views. 
The  Cardinal  in  Sydney  took  pains  to  assure  the  faithful  that 
the  famous  encyclical  of  the  late  Pope  against  Socialism  was 
directed  against  such  "Anarchists"  as  his  Holiness  was  familiar 
with  in  Europe,  and  had  no  bearing  upon  the  socialistic  ten- 
dencies of  the  labor  movement  in  Australasia.  And  the  Protestant 
churches,  whose  membership  in  Australia  outnumbers  the  Ro- 
manists by  more  than  three  to  one  and  in  New  Zealand  by  almost 
six  to  one,  to  a  less  degree  than  the  Catholics,  even,  showed  any 
interest  in  the  questions  about  which  the  voters  were  most  con- 
cerned. 

That  she  does  not  carefully  study  measures  and  weigh  men's 
motives,  that  she  does  not  always  cast  her  ballot  with  delibera- 
tion, freed  of  prejudice  and  uninfluenced  by  her  family,  the 
New  Zealand  woman  must  plead  guilty  to,  if  men  without 
guilt  in  these  respects  choose  to  cast  stones  at  her  for  this. 
But  that  she  refrains  from  using  the  ballot  in  New  Zealand, 
now  that  she  has  it,  the  records  fully  disprove. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  S^P 

In  1893,  the  first  j^ear  when  women  voted  at  a  general  election, 
78  per  cent,  of  the  adult  female  population  registered  as  electors, 
and  of  these  over  85  per  cent,  voted.  By  1905  the  proportion  of 
registered  electors  had  gradually  increased  to  212,876  women, 
or  to  nearly  94  per  cent,  of  the  adult  women  of  the  Dominion. 
Of  these  175,046,  or  82  per  cent.,  voted.  These  figures  for  the 
men  are  almost  identical — 96^  per  cent,  registered,  and  of  these 
84  per  cent,  voted. 

Australian  election  returns,  both  federal  and  state,  give  re- 
sults much  less  creditable  to  women  as  voters,  but  the  men  do 
not  in  this  respect  set  the  women  a  very  praiseworthy  example. 

In  Commonwealth  elections  Australian  voters,  male  and  fe- 
male, show  a  marked  apathy,  the  men,  however,  retaining  about 
the  same  advantage  over  the  women  in  percentage  of  votes 
cast  to  enrollments  as  in  state  elections.  Figures  from  the 
federal  elections  of  December  16,  1903,  and  December  12,  1906, 
are  here  tabulated,  those  for  the  House  of  Representatives  being 
omitted,  as  they  vary  but  slightly  from  the  results  here  shown 
of  the  voting  for  Commonwealth  senators    : 


PERCENTAGE  OF   VOTERS   TO   ELECTORS   ENROLLED. 


Fe- 

Males  males 


New  South  Wales  j    ^^03    52.70    41.16 


Victoria   I    ^903    56.89    45.63 

1    I     '     ' 


1906  58.57  43.90 
903  56.89  45.63 
906    62.30    51.14 


Queensland    <  ^^03  62.49  44-94 

(  1906  53.03  37.14 

South  Australia  \  '^^  41.58  23.28 

]  1906  44.45  28.43 

Western    Australia    5  ^^03  35-96  14.86 


Tasmania   5    ^^03     54.53    34-30 


906  40.67  28.74 
903  54.53  34-30 
906    61.65    45.95 


Commonwealth    5    ^903    53-09    39-96 

(    1906    56.38    43-30 

Still   another   test   may   be   applied — the   referendum   held   on 
July  31,  1900,  on  the  question  of   federation.     Again  is  seen  a 


100  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

wide  lack  of  interest  in  matters   of  public  importance — common 
to  both  men  and  women : 

COMMONWEALTH    REFERENDUM. 

Per  cent  of  votes 
recorded  to  total 
number  of  persons, 
male  and  female, 
qualified  to  vote. 
New    South   Wales 63.39 

Victoria    56.29 

Tasmania    .  36.48 

South    Australia    5444 

Queensland    64.78 

Western   Australia    67.13 

It  will  be  noted  that,  although  the  percentage  of  enrolled  fe- 
males voting  in  the  Australian  states  at  state  elections  is  no- 
ticeably lower  than  the  percentage  of  qualified  males  so  voting, 
the  women  of  all  the  states  except  Tasmania  show  a  much 
keener  interest  in  state  elections  than  do  the  men  in  federal 
elections.  But  the  suffrage  is  a  new  privilege  of  citizenship  to 
the  women  of  all  but  one  of  the  Australian  states,  gained  with- 
out much  effort  on  their  part.  It  may  not  yet  be  concluded  how 
far  they  are  likely  in  the  future  to  evince  an  appreciation  of  their 
enfranchisement. 

The  upshot  of  the  whole  matter  appears  to  be  that  in  New 
Zealand  the  votes  which  women  have  had  for  sixteen  years 
have  changed  the  current  of  political  thought  as  little  as  they 
have  made  any  actual  difference  as  yet  in  woman's  economic 
and  mental  dependence  upon  man.  In  the  Australian  states, 
where  there  are  found  nearly  all  of  the  types  of  liberal  legisla- 
tion enacted  in  New  *  Zealand,  women  have  but  recently  been 
enfranchised,  as  a  clear  result  of  a  progressive  movement  for 
which  they  can  in  no  way  be  held  responsible.  And  in  Australia, 
as  in  New  Zealand,  women  take  the  responsibilities  of  citizenship 
just  as  mere  men  do,  show  no  more  interest  and  no  less  in 
political  questions  than  they,  and  cast  the  privileged  ballot  with 
all  the  male  elector's  usual  lack  of  forethought  and  occasional 
studied  conviction. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  loi 

Vote  of  Massachusetts  on  Municipal  Suffrage  for  Women  at 
the  State  Election,  November  5,  1895. 

After  twenty-five  years  of  agitation  by  the  suffragists,  the 
question  of  municipal  suffrage  for  women  was  brought  to  a  test 
at  the  State  Election,  November  5,  1895.  The  voters  were  asked 
their  opinion,  and  gave  a  most  emphatic  reply. 

Never  was  there  so  full  an  expression  of  opinion  upon  any 
question  submitted  to  the  people  of  Massachusetts.  The  vote 
for  governor  at  the  State  Election  was  328,121.  The  vote  of  the 
men  upon  municipal  woman  suffrage  at  the  same  election  was 
273,946.  Over  83  per  cent,  of  those  voting  for  governor  voted 
upon  this  question,  while  in  1891  only  62  per  cent,  of  those 
\MDting  for  governor  voted  upon  the  constitutional  amendment 
abolishing  the  poll  tax  as  a  prerequisite  for  voting,  and  in  1896 
only  72  per  cent,  of  those  voting  for  governor  voted  upon  the 
constitutional  amendment  providing  for  biennial  elections. 

Never  has  any  question  submitted  to  the  people  of  Massachu- 
setts received  so  overwhelming  a  defeat.  The  vote  of  th^ 
men  was,  "No''  186,976,  "Yes"  86,970,  a  "No"  majority  of  100,006. 
The  vote  in  1889  on  the  prohibition  amendment  to  the  constitu- 
tion was,  **No"  133,085,  "Yes"  86,459,  a  "No"  majority  of  46,626. 
The  vote  in  1896  on  the  biennial  elections  amendment  was,  "No" 
161,263,  "Yes"  115,505,  a  "No"  majority  of  45,758.  So  that  the 
majority  against  woman  suffrage  in  Massachusetts  is  more  than 
twice  as  great  as  that  against  either  prohibition  or  biennial  elec- 
tions. 

The  vote  of  the  women  on  the  suffrage  question,  "Yes" 
22,204,  "No"  861,  is  as  significant  as  that  of  the  men.  By  the 
census  of  1895  the  number  of  men  in  Massachusetts  qualified 
to  register  and  vote  was  560,802.  The  number  of  women 
qualified  to  register  and  vote  on  this  question  was  at  least  575,000. 
Of  these  more  than  550,000  declined  to  vote,  and  less  than  four 
in  a  hundred  voted  "Yes."  In  other  words,  more  than  96  per 
cent,  of  the  women  of  the  commonwealth  either  prefer  the  present 
status  of  the  suffrage  or  are  wholly  indifferent  in  the  matter. 

In  48  towns  not  one  woman  voted  "Yes,"  and  in  137  other 
towns  the  women  voting  "Yes"  numbered  fifteen  or  less.  As  the 
vast  majority  of  the  w^omen  opposed  to  the  suffrage  expressed 


I02  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

their  opinion  by  refusing  to  vote,  the  women's  vote  for  the  pur- 
poses of  tabulation,  has  little  value.  In  the  following  statement 
of  votes,  therefore,  the  votes  of  the  men  alone  are  considered. 

Massachusetts,  at  the  time  of  the  election,  had  31  cities  and 
322  towns.  Of  the  31  cities,  every  one  cast  a  large  majority 
against  woman  suffrage.  The  vote  of  the  cities  was,  "No" 
120,657,  ''Yes"  53,982,  a  ''No"  majority  of  66,675.  Many  people 
have  thought  that  the  vote  against  waman  suffrage  was  dis- 
proportionately heavy  in  the  cities,  but  this  is  not  so.  The  vote 
of  the  322  towns  was,  "No"  66,319,  "Yes"  32,988,  a  "No"  majority 
of  33^33^-  The  cities  of  Massachusetts  contain  two-thirds  of  the 
population  of  the  state,  and,  in  an  even  distribution  of  senti- 
ment, should  therefore  contribute  two-thirds  of  the  "No"  major- 
ity. That  is  just  what  they  did,  and  the  closeness  of  the 
figures  to  an  exact  two-thirds  is  remarkable.  Of  the  322  towns, 
293  voted  "No,"  28  voted  "Yes,"  and  i  was  a  tie.  The  28 
towns  voting  "Yes"  were  among  the  smallest  in  the  state,  their 
vote  averaging  only  "Yes'*  51,  "No'*  42. 

Every  County  and  every  Congressional,  Councillor,  Senatorial 
and  Representative  district  in  the  Commonwealth  cast  a  majority 
against  the  proposition. 


World  To-Day.  11:  1264-8.  December,  1906. 

Present   Status   of   Woman   Suffrage.     Ida  Husted   Harper. 

The  recent  death  of  Miss  Susan  B.  Anthony  has  called 
forth  a  wide  discussion  in  regard  to  the  movement  for  woman 
suffrage,  of  which  she  was  for  fifty  years  the  leader.  As  this 
discussion  has  shown  in  some  instances  a  considerable  lack  of 
knowledge  as  to  the  present  situation,  a  review  of  it  may  be  of 
interest. 

When  the  question  of  giving  the  franchise  to  women  was 
first  agitated,  about  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  their  posi- 
tion was  one  of  the  greatest  inferiority  in  every  respect — laws, 
education,  industrial  opportunity  and  social  advantages.  The 
pioneers  of  the  movement  logically  held  that  if  women  could 
become  political  factors  their  interests  would  very  soon  rank  in 
importance   with  those  of   men.     They  therefore  advocated  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  103 

possession  of  the  suffrage  as  the  first  requisite.  But  they  also 
made  every  possible  effort  to  secure  the  desired  changes  by 
other  means.  As  all  of  these  advantages  except  the  ballot  could 
be  obtained  through  the  alteration  of  statutes,  the  decision  of 
boards  of  trustees,  the  willingness  of  employers  and  the  gen- 
eral advance  of  public  sentiment,  they  were  gradually  brought 
about,  until  now  laws  are  reasonably  fair  to  women :  women's 
educational  and  industrial  opportunities  approximate  those  of 
men,  and  their  right  to  speak  in  public,  to  organize,  to  work 
along  all  lines  of  activity  is  fully  conceded. 

Notwithstanding  all  this  progress  the  effort  to  obtain  the 
franchise  has  had  so  small  results  as  to  create  a  belief  among 
many  that  it  never  will  succeed.  The  reason  why  this  con- 
cession has  been  so  largely  withheld  is  the  fact  that  it  alone 
requires  a  change  in  the  constitution  of  the  state,  and  this  can 
be  made  only  by  permission  of  a  majority  of  the  voters.  Imagine, 
for  instance,  that  the  colleges  of  New  York  could  not  have  been 
opened  to  women  except  through  the  consent  of  the  masses  of 
men  in  the  lower  East  Side  of  New  York  city  and  the  slums 
of  the  other  cities,  and  you  have  the  situation  in  regard  to 
woijian  suffrage.  Consider  also  that  this  is  the  only  one  of  the 
concessions  that  has  any  political  significance;  that  can  make  or 
unmake  legislators  and  other  officeholders ;  that  can  affect  the 
liquor,  patent  medicine  and  other  vast  commercial  interests  by 
compelling  not  only  laws  for  the  purpose  but  their  administra- 
tion ;  that  can  change  the  status  of  the  entire  community.  In 
a  word,  consider  the  tremendous  power  that  would  be  conferred 
on  women  through  the  possession  of  the  franchise,  and  it  will 
be  clear  why  the  work  of  securing  it  has  been  so  slow  and  so 
difficult. 

Thus  handicapped,  what  is  the  status  of  this  movement  to- 
day? In  four  states — Wyoming,  Colorado,  Utah  and  Idaho — 
women  have  the  full  suffrage  on  exactly  the  same  terms  as 
men ;  in  Kansas  they  have  the  municipal  franchise ;  in  Montana 
and  Louisiana  all  woman  taxpayers  may  vote  on  questions  of 
special  taxation ;  in  the  villages  of  New  York  they  may  do  the 
same,  and  the  charters  of  twelve  of  the  thirty-six  third-class 
cities  give  them  this  privilege;  in  Iowa  all  women  may  vote  on 
issuing    bonds;  .in    Mississippi    taxpayers    and    widows    have    a 


I04  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

mere  fragment  of  a  vote  on  a  few  matters  pertaining  to  country- 
schools  and  the  running  at  large  of  stock;  in  Minnesota  they 
may  vote  for  public  library  boards ;  in  Arkansas  the  names  of 
women  on  a  petition  against  liquor-selHng  within  certain  limits 
count  the  same  as  men's ;  in  twenty-two  states  and  territories, 
they  have  a  school  suffrage — Arizona,  Connecticut,  Delaware, 
Illinois,  Kansas,  Kentucky,  Massachusetts,  Michigan,  Minne- 
sota, Montana,  Nebraska,  New  Hampshire,  New  Jersey,  New 
York,  North  Dakota,  Ohio,  Oklahoma,  Oregon,  South  Dakota, 
Vermont,  Washington,  Wisconsin. 

This  partial  franchise,  which  has  been  conferred  entirely  by 
legislative  action,  has  never  been  taken  away  except  in  one 
state — Kentucky.  Its  first  school  law  in  1838  gave  a  school  vote 
to  women  in  country  districts,  which  in  1888  was  extended  to 
those  of  villages,  and  in  1894  to  the  three  ctities,  Lexington, 
Covington  and  Newport.  In  1902^  school  question  came  up  in 
which  the  colored  people  were  vitally  interested  and  more  colored 
than  white  women  voted.  The  legislature  immediately  took 
away  the  suffrage  from  all  women  in  those  three  cities. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  movement  its  leaders  thought  that 
every  scrap  of  suffrage  gained  was  a  step  toward  full  enfran- 
chisement, but  they  no  longer  hold  this  opinion.  It  will  be 
noted  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  taxpayers'  franchise  in 
New  York  (1901),  no  partial  suffrage  has  been  granted  within 
the  past  ten  or  twelve  years.  This  has  given  rise  to  the  opinion, 
frequently  expressed,  that  interest  in  the  question  is  on  the 
wane.  The  reason,  on  the  contrary,  lies  in  the  fact  that  the 
National  Suffrage  Association  strongly  opposes  any  further 
effort  in  this  direction  and  uses  its  influence  to  prevent  it.  To 
obtain  these  fragmentary  votes  requires  about  as  much  time, 
energy  and  money  as  to  secure  the  submission  of  an  amendment 
for  the  full  suffrage,  and  they  amount  to  almost  nothing  when 
granted.  For  instance,  in  Massachusetts  women  have  had  so- 
called  school-suffrage  since  1879,  but  it  consists  merely  in  a  vote 
for  members  of  the  board  of  education,  but  not  for  supervisors, 
appropriations  or  any  question  whatever  connected  with  the 
public  schools,  nor  are  they  allowed  any  voice  in  nominating 
candidates.  For  this  small  privilege  they  were  obliged  until 
1892  to  pay  a  poll  tax  and  exercise  constant  watchfulness  to  keep 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  105, 

their  names  on  the  voting  list.  The  latter  is  still  necessary,  and 
they  must  register  and  comply  with  all  the  requirements  that 
men  do  for  the  full  suffrage;  and  yet  great  capital  is  made  by 
the  opponents  because  the  women  there  do  not  turn  out  en 
masse  to  the  polls. 

In  Illinois,  for  another  instance,  women  in  the  country  and 
villages  may  vote  for  the  school  board,  but  in  Chicago  and 
the  other  cities  where  it  is  appointed  by  the  mayor  or  council, 
the  only  privilege  they  have  is  to  vote  once  in  two  years  for 
three  trustees  of  the  state  university.  And  yet  there  is  a  loud 
outcry  because  they  do  not  by  thousands  take  the  trouble  to 
register  and  brave  the  disagreeable  features  of  election  day  to 
exercise  this  infinitesimal  privilege.  The  situation  is  very 
similar  in  all  states  where  women  have  an  alleged  school  fran- 
chise, .and  their  apparent  indifference  is  seized  upon  by  the 
anti-suffragists  as  a  reason  why  they  should  not  have  any  further 
political  rights. 

In  Michigan,  after  ten  years  of  heroic  effort  by.  the  women,, 
they  finally  secured  a  law  for  municipal  suffrage  (1893),  the  bill 
passing  both  houses  of  the  legislature  by  large  majorities  and 
receiving  the  governor's  signature.  Before  the  first  election 
it  was  declared  unconstitutional  by  the  Supreme  Court. 

Municipal  suffrage  was  granted  to  women  by  the  Kansas, 
legislature  in  1887,  and  it  was  hoped  that  through  this  means, 
it  would  be  possible  to  enforce  the  liquor  prohibition  laws  and 
other  measures  for  law  and  order.  By  various  devices,  how- 
ever, women  have  been  gradually  prevented  from  exercising  the 
franchise  where  it  could  have  this  eft'ect,  vmtil  now  they  can 
vote  in  the  larger  cities  only  for  mayor,  councilmen,  school 
board,  city  attorney,  treasurer  and  clerk.  They  can  not  vote  for 
police  judge,  city  marshal,  chief  cf  police,  judge  of  the  city  court, 
justices  of  the  peace  or  constables.  Notwithstanding  these  re- 
strictions the  almost  unvarying  testimony  is  that  through  their 
participation  in  politics  a  higher  class  of  officials  and  better 
government  are  secured.  The  best  proof  of  this  Hes  in  the  fact 
that  every  move  to  increase  their  voting  power  is  violently 
opposed  by  the  law-defying  elements  of  the  community.  For 
this  very  reason  the  women  of  Kansas  are  strenuous  in  urging 
those   of   other   states  not  to   ask   for   the   municipal    franchise.. 


io6  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

They  have  found  that  by  the  use  of  it  they  have  incurred  the 
hostility  of  the  party  poUticians  as  well  as  the  lawless  classes, 
and  that  it  acts  as  a  direct  bar  against  the  extension  to  them  of 
the  full  suffrage.  That  there  have  not  been  any  gains  in  the 
way  of  a  restricted  ballot  during  the  past  ten  years  is  not,  there- 
fore, any  indication  of  a  lack  of  interest,  but  rather  of  sagacious- 
ness  on  the  part  of  the  women. 

There  is  another  form  of  limited  suffrage  which  its  advocates 
are  very  desirous  of  having  made  the  subject  of  an  experiment, 
that  for  presidential  electors.  There  is  no  question  that  legisla- 
tures have  a  right  to  confer  this  upon  women,  and  it 
is  held  that  through  its  use  women  would  demon- 
strate whether  they  really  do  want  to  vote,  what  would  be  the 
effect  of  their  presence  at  the  polls,  etc.  Its  opponents  object 
because  they  believe  the  results  would  be  similar  to  that  of  mu- 
nicipal suffrage  in  creating  political  hostility.  Its  advocates  an- 
swer that  when  the  women  showed  with  which  party  the  major- 
ity of  them  would  affiliate,  that  party  would  at  once  take  steps 
to  give  them  the  full  suffrage.  The  opponents  reply  that  the 
experience  of  the  states  where  they  have  the  full  franchise  is 
that  in  local  matters  they  will  not  be  bound  by  party  lines.  A 
bill  to  give  women  presidential  suffrage  has  passed  one  house 
of  the  legislature  in  several  states.  Within  the  last  few  weeks 
one  has  passed  the  senate  in  Rhode  Island  and  the  house  in 
Iowa.  Doubtless  the  other  branch  will  defeat  it  in  each  state, 
but  it  may  eventually  be  adopted  somewhere,  and  the  experiment 
will  be  watched  with  a  great  deal  of  interest.  The  very  next 
legislature  could  repeal  it,  however,  as  it  can  any  franchise 
which  it  confers.  Women  can  not  be  sure  that  any  form  of  suf- 
frage is  permanent  unless  it  has  been  made  a  part  of  the  con- 
stitution of  the  state  by  a  majority  vote  of  the  electors.  In 
that  case  it  could  only  be  repealed  by  another  majority  vote, 
and  they  themselves  would  have   a  voice   in  the   matter. 

The  next  phase  of  the  question  to  be  considered  relates  to 
the  four  states  where  women  vote  at  all  elections  and  on  all  ques- 
tions and  candidates.  In  a  territory  the  legislature  has  power 
to  grant  full  suffrage,  and  the  first  legislative  council  of  Wy- 
oming, in  1869,  gave  this  to  women.  In  1889  it  was  incorpor- 
ated in  the  constitution  for  statehood    (with  but  one  dissenting 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  107 

voice  in  the  convention),  this  was  adopted  by  a  three-fourths 
vote,  women  themselves  voting  on  it,  and  the   state  came  into 
.  the  union  in  1890  with  its  women  fully  enfranchised. 

A  strong  effort  was  made  to  obtain  woman  suffrage  from 
the  territorial  legislature  of  Colorado  in  1870,  but  it  was  un- 
successful. A  second  determined  attempt  was  made  to  have  it 
incorporated  in  the  constitution  for  statehood  in  1876.  All  that 
could  be  secured  was  a  provision  that  the  first  state  legislature 
should  submit  the  question  to  the  voters.  This  was  done  in 
1877  and  it  was  defeated  by  a  two-thirds  vote.  The  proposi- 
tion was  submitted  again  in  1893  and  carried — 35»798  yeas 
29,451  nays — the  former  vote  almost  reversed. 

The  territorial  legislature  of  Utah  conferred  full  suffrage  on 
women  in  1870,  and  they  exercised  it  very  generally  until  1887,. 
when  all  women,  Gentiles  and  Mormon,  were  arbitrarily  disfran- 
chised by  Congress  as  part  of  a  plan  for  eradicating  polygamy. 
The  convention  for  statehood  in  1895  placed  a  clause  in  the 
constitution  giving  women  the  complete  franchise ;  it  was  adopt- 
ed by  28,618  yeas,  2,687  nays,  and  signed  by  President  Cleve- 
land, January  4,  1S96. 

In  1895  the  legislature  of  Idaho  submitted  an  amendment  ful- 
ly enfranchising  women,  which  was  endorsed  by  all  political 
parties.  It  was  carried  in  November,  1896,  by  12,126  yeas,  6,282 
nays. 

At  the  same  time  a  similar  amendment  in  California  was  de- 
feated by  the  vote  of  San  Francisco  and  Alameda  counties.  It 
was  carried  in  every  county  in  southern  California,  Los  Angeles 
giving  a  majority  of  4.600.  Since  1896  an  amendment  has  been 
submitted  in  South  Dakota  (1897)  and  lost  by  an  adverse  ma- 
jority of  3,285;  in  Oregon  (1900)  and  defeated  by  2,137  votes,, 
mostly  in  Portland.  In  neither  of  these  last  two  campaigns  did 
the  National  Suffrage  Association  take  part.  New  Hampshire 
held  a  convention  in  December,  1902,  to  revise  its  constitution 
and,  by  a  vote  of  145  to  92,  incorporated  a  clause  for  complete 
woman  suffrage.  There  was  not  the  remotest  chance  of  its 
carrying,  as  it  was  opposed  by  the  managers  of  both  party 
"machines,"  by  the  Boston  &  Maine  Railroad,  whose  influence 
is  supreme,  by  the  manufacturing  corporations  and  by  the  Master 
of  the  Grange,  who  was  candidate  for  governor.     Nevertheless,^ 


io8  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

purely  for  the  moral  effect,  the  national  association  assisted  the 
New  Hampshire  women  to  make  a  vigorous  campaign.  The 
amendment  received  21,7^  nays,  14,162  yeas.  The  results  in 
creating  public  sentiment  and  increasing  their  membership  fully' 
justified  the  expectations  of  the  suffragists,  and  the  next  time 
the  question  is  presented  it  will  be  carried. 

A  great  deal  of  surprise  is  expressed,  and  with  much  rea- 
son, that  after  securing  woman  suffrage  in  four  states  within 
six  years,  there  should  not  be  another  gain  in  ten  years.  The 
situation  may  be  stated  briefly  as  follows :  Up  to  1896  it  had 
been  an  easy  matter  to  persuade  a  legislature  to  submit  an 
amendment,  as  they  did  not  think  it  could  be  carried.  The  four 
victories,  one  after  the  other,  showed  that  with  a  fair  field  the 
women  could  win  their  fight.  In  those  states  where,  at  pres- 
ent, there  is  a  very  strong  chance  of  success,  the  legislatures 
now  refuse  emphatically  to  submit  the  question.  All  the  women 
ask  is  the  privilege  of  carrying  their  case  to  the  voters,  and  the 
very  fact  that  the  political  powers  will  not  allow  this  is  un-  " 
deniable  proof  of  the  strength  of  the  movement.  There  is  not 
a  doubt  that  Iowa  would  give  a  large  majority  in  favor  of  wom- 
an suffrage,  the  legislature  knows  it,  and  for  years  it  has  re- 
fused positively  to  let  the  question  go  before  the  people.  When 
the  legislature  of  California  last  year  denied  the  petition  of 
the  women  for  a  resubmission  of  the  amendment,  some  of  the 
members  said  frankly,  "It  will  carry  next  time;  it  is  much 
easier  to  defeat  you  here." 

It  is  not  to  the  special  advantage  of  any  political  party  or 
of  any  great  vested  interest  to  have  women  vote,  and  these 
two  powers,  cooperating,  control  legislation  and  elections.  For 
the  last  ten  years  commercialisrh  has  dominated  absolutely  and 
there  has  been  no  opportunity  for  moral  issues.  This  time  has 
been  employed  by  the  suffragists  in  strengthening  their  organ- 
ization, educating  public  sentiment  and  getting  ready  for  the 
reaction  in  the  national  life,  which  is  now  clearly  foreshadowed. 
The  work  of  the  national  association  is  on  a  sound  business 
basis,  systematically  and  thoroughly  organized,  reaching  out  to 
all  parts  of  the  country.  The  treasurer's  last  report  showed 
nearly  $30,000  on  hand,  and  arrangements  under  way  by  women 
of  wealth  to  raise  a  large  annual   fund.     I^early  one   hundred 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  109 

and  seven  thousand  pieces  of  literature  were  sent  out  from  the 
headquarters  on  demand  last  year;  over  eighty  thousand  ar- 
ticles furnished  by  the  press  bureau  to  four  thousand  seven 
hundred  newspapers ;  and  subscriptions  received  for  fifty-four 
thousand  copies  of  Progress,  the  monthly  paper  which  they  pub- 
lish. 

Organizations  of  women  everywhere  are  veering  around 
toward  suffrage.  The  great  International  Council  of  Women, 
with  branches  in  twenty  countries  and  representing  eight  mil- 
lion members,  has  adopted  this  as  part  of  its  work.  The 
Federation  of  Clubs  is  becoming  honeycombed  with  woman  suf- 
frage ideas,  and  has  a  leader  among  suffragists  for  its  president. 
The  protest  made  to  the  committee  on  territories  of  the  United 
States  Senate  against  classing  women  with  idiots,  insane  and 
criminals  in  the  suffrage  clause  of  the  proposed  new  states, 
was  signed  by  hundreds  of  women's  clubs  that  had  no  connec- 
tion with  the  suffrage  association.  Last  year  339  organizations 
of  men  alone,  of  women  alone,  and  of  both,  formed  for  widely 
different  purposes,  officially  endorsed  woman  suffrage.  In  Chi- 
cago the  Teachers'  Federation  of  four  thousand,  the  Woman's 
Club  of  one  thousand  two  hundred  and  many  other  societies 
are  cooperating  to  secure  a  vote  for  women  in  the  new  city 
charter.  Wage-earning  women  and  college  women  are  forming 
suffrage  clubs.  The  changed  attitude  of  the  press  is  everywhere 
noticeable.  The  two  ponderous  fulminations  of  ex-President 
Cleveland  received  scarcely  a  favorable  comment,  but  were 
made  the  subject  of  endless  flippant  paragraphs,  whereas  they 
were  merely  repetitions  of  what  were  considered  profound  argu- 
ments a  generation  ago. 

On  every  side  is  the  most  convincing  evidence  of  the  progress 
of  public  sentiment  on  this  question.  Intrenched  in  the  con- 
stitution, as  the  suffrage  is,  its  possession  is  most  difficult  to 
obtain,  but  the  movement  for  this  purpose  never  was  on  as 
solid  a  foundation,  the  prospects  never  were  as  favorable  and' 
its  advocates  never  were  so  inspired  with  courage  and  hope  as 
at  the  present  time. 


no  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

World  To-Day.  13:  1008-12.  October,  1907. 

Electing   Women   to    Parliament.     Ida   Husted   Harper. 

This  present  year  of  1907  marks  an  epoch  in  the  evolution 
•of  nvomankind,  as  for  the  first  time  in  all  history  women  have 
taken  their  seats  in  a  national  parliament  as  elected  represen- 
tatives of  the  people.  To  Finland  belongs  the  honor  of  this  in- 
novation. Women  tirst  voted  for  members  of  parliament  in 
New  Zealand  in  1893,  but  they  are  not  entitled  to  sit  in  that 
body.  They  have  had  the  parliamentary  vote  in  Australia  since 
1902  and  are  eligible  as  members,  but  none  has  yet  been  elected, 
although  one  woman  candidate  for  senator  received  a  large  vote 
at  the  last  election. 

The  first  Finish  Women's  Association  was  founded  in  1884 
by  the  Baroness  Alexandra  Gripenberg,  member  of  an  ancient 
i)oble  family,  highly  educated,  broad  and  far-seeing  in  her  views, 
and  v^ith  the  means  to  attend  international  meetings  of  women 
in  all  countries  and  imbibe  the  universal  ideas  of  freedom  and 
independence.  This  association  worked  for  the  rights  of  women 
along  all  lines,  but  in  1892  one  still  more  radical  was  organized 
by  Annie  Furuhjelm,  daughter  of  an  admiral  who  was  next  to 
the  last  governor  of  Alaska  under  Russian  rule.  When  the 
necessity  came  for  political  effort  this  large  organized  body 
was  ready  to  be  called  at  once  into  service.  The  two  principal 
associations  had  long  demanded  the  suffrage  for  women  and  had 
a  strong  support  always  in  parliament,  but  conditions  prevented 
its  taking  action  on  the  question. 

In  1899  the  aft'airs  of  Finland  reached  a  crisis.  Its  Consti- 
tution was  annulled  by  the  Russian  government  and  every  species 
of  oppression  used  to  crush  the  rising  independence  of  the 
people.  They  set  to  work  to  secure  half  a  million  signatures 
to  a  petition  to  the  Czar,  and  women  wrote  day  and  night  be- 
hind barred  shutters  preparing  ten  thousand  copies  of  this  pe- 
tition for  circulation.  And  women  it  was  who,  taking  their  lives 
in  their  hands,  collected  most  of  the  signatures,  four  hundred 
of  them  making  this  canvass  in  Helsingfors  alone.  They  dis- 
seminated literature,  collected  funds,  attended  secret  conclaves 
and  went  bravely  to  prison  and  to  Siberian  exile — those  of  the 
middle  class,  peasants   and  wage-earners   of   the   cities   working 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  in 

and  suffering  together.  Then  came  the  war  with  Japan,  the 
vast  revohition  in  Russia  and  finally  the  culmination — Finland's 
great  "strike,"  in  October,  1905,  when  for  a  whole  week  there 
was  no  gas  or  electricity ;  when  not  a  train,  tram,  boat  or  car- 
riage moved;  when  there  were  no  mails,  no  telephone  service, 
no  courts,  no  schools ;  when  soldiers,  police  and  all  public  officers 
ceased  from  duty,  and  the  women  everywhere  sharing  all,  en- 
during all  without  complaint  and  encouraging  the  men  to  be 
brave  and  un3aelding. 

As  the  result  of  it  all  Finland  gained  her  Constitution  and 
that  which  was  most  strongly  demanded — the  right  of  suffrage. 
In  this  the  inclusion  of  women  was  scarcely  questioned,  but  they 
themselves  had  made  this  obligatory  by  other  means  than  those 
of  patriotism  and  self-sacrifice  in  the  country's  darkest  days. 
The  Finnish  delegates  had  come  home  from  the  International 
Council  of  Women,  held  at  Berlin  in  1904,  quickened  with  the 
inspiration  of  that  great  meeting,  and  in  the  autumn  the  Woman's 
Alliance  Union  was  called  in  Helsingfors,  the  first  public  meeting 
which  ever  took  place  in  Finland  for  woman  suffrage.  It  was 
announced  to  be  for  women  alone  and  more  than  a  thousand  of 
all  classes  and  all  political  parties  were  present,  while  hundreds 
were  turned  away  for  lack  of  room.  Forty-seven  memorials 
signed  by  hundreds  of  women  were  sent  from  various  parts  of 
the  country.  Resolutions  were  unanimously  adopted  demanding 
that  the  full  franchise  should  be  extended  to  women  and  that 
they  should  be  made  eligible  for  all  offices. 

From  that  time  the  Alliance  put  other  questions  aside  and 
devoted  its  energies  to  the  movement  for  woman  suffrage.  They 
expected  then  that  it  would  be  a  work  of  years,  but  in  twelve 
months  came  the  revolution,  the  "strike"  and  the  Declaration  of 
Rights.  While  this  document  was  under  consideration  the  wom- 
en appointed  Dr.  Tekla  Hultin,  a  scholarly  woman  connected 
with  the  National  Bureau  of  Statistics,  to  present  their  claims 
to  be  included  in  the  provision  for  universal  suffrage.  In  an- 
swer to  her  eloquent  and  powerful  argument  the  franchise  for 
women  was  placed  in  the  draft  for  the  new  government,  which 
was  presented  to  the  Czar  for  his  approval.  The  Czar  sent 
for  Senator  Mechelin,  leader  of  the  parliament,  to  consult  with 
him  as  to  the  woman-suffrage  clause,  and  asked  many  questions 


-112  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

as  to  its  working  in  other  countries.  At  the  close  of  the  in- 
terview the  Senator  said:  "The  opinion  of  the  nation  demands 
it,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  fear  that  women  will  not  use  their 
vote  with  the  same  feeling  of  responsibility  as  men."  The 
Czar  signed  the  document  November  7,  1905. 

It  was  necessary  now  that  the  question  should  go  before  the 
commission  which  would  draft  the  Constitution  and  the  electoral 
law  and '  that  these  should  be  approved  by  the  parliament.  CJn 
November  26  meetings  of  women  were  held  in  150  districts 
throughout  the  country  to  choose  delegates  to  a  mass  convention 
in  Helsingfors.  This  took  place  December  7  and,  although  lii* 
days  were  very  short,  the  weather  cold  and  the  roads  almost  im- 
passable, 190  delegates  were  in  attendance,  representing  about 
twenty  thousand  women  of  all  classes  and  conditions.  The  reso- 
lution for  woman  suffrage  was  carried  amidst  the  enthusiasm  of 
a  large  audience,  committees  were  appointed  for  meetings,  peti- 
tions, canvassing,  etc.,  and  arrangements  made  for  three  hundred 
lectures.  This  never  was  a  political  question  but  was  placed  on 
the  programs  of  all  parties ;  associations  of  every  kind  declared 
for  it  and  scarcely  a  voice  was  raised  against  it.  In  the  consti- 
tutional committee  there  were  but  two  opposing  votes.  In  the 
diet  it  was  hardly  debated ;  in  the  senate  there  was  but  one  vote 
against  it,  that  of  a  bishop  who  declared  that  women  had  not 
enough  brains.  There  was  a  dominant  feeling  that  every  citi- 
zen should  have  political  freedom  and  be  invested  with  civic 
responsibility. 

On  May  29,  1906.  the  Finnish  parliament  extended  full  suf- 
frage to  all  men  and  women  twenty-four  years  of  age*,  the  men 
to  pay  a  poll-tax  of  twenty-four  cents  and  the  women  of  twelve 
cents,  and  all  entitled  to  vote  were  made  eligible  to  any  office. 
The  law  was  approved  by  the  Czar  July  20  and  went  into  effect 
October   i. 

As  the  women  would  vote  for  the  first  time  on  March  15, 
1907,  the  leaders  among  them  made  extensive  preparations  to 
instruct  them  in  their  new  duties.  The  suffrage  societies,  the 
Young  Women's  Christian  Association,  the  Social  Democratic 
clubs,  the  temperance  and  other  organizations  arranged  for  lec- 
tures on  the  new  law  on  proportional  representation  and  on  the 
political   issues,   while  in  many  instances   these   were   combined 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  113 

Avith  talks  on  education,  temperance,  purity  and  other  social 
questions.  Society  women,  young  lady  students,  house  servants 
and  old  market  women  with  shawls  over  their  heads  sat  side 
by  side,  all  equally  interested.  Trial  elections  were  held,  halls 
fitted  up  with  ballot-boxes,  tickets  distributed,  speeches  made, 
canvassing  boards  of  women  appointed  and  persons  at  hand  to 
conduct  everything  in  a  legal  manner.  These  halls  were  crowd- 
ed and  the  women  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  affair  with 
keenest  interest  and  enjoyment. 

All  parties  nominated  women  for  parliament  and  they  ad- 
dressed their  constituencies  just  as  the  men  candidates  did,  ex- 
cept that  it  was  noted  in  almost  every  instance  they  took  up 
many  reform  questions  and  did  not  confine  themselves  to  poli- 
tics. The  democratic  effect  of  universal  suffrage  can  in  no  way 
be  so  forcibly  illustrated  as  by  a  list  of  the  nineteen  women  who 
were   elected : 

OP^   THE    SWEDISH    PARTY. 

Miss  Dagmar  Neovius,  born  May  21,  1867,  head  teacher  in  a 
preparatory  school,  4,509  votes. 

OF    THE    YOUNG    FINNISH    PARTY. 

Miss  Lucina  Hagman,  born  June  5,  1853,  principal  of  a  mixed 
lyceum,  6,085  votes. 

Miss  Alii  Nissinen,  born  December  26,  1866,  head  teacher  in 
a  preparatory  school,  5,220  votes. 

OF    THE    AGRARIAN    PARTY. 

Miss  Hilma  Rasanen,  born  1877,  teacher  in  an  elementary 
school,  5,608  votes. 

OF    THE    OLD    FINNISH    PARTY. 

Baroness  Alexandra  Gripenberg,  born  August  30,  1857,  editor, 
27,585  votes. 

Mrs.  Evelina  Ala-Kulju,  born  October  27,  1867,  wife  of  a 
peasant,  6,942  votes. 

Mrs.  Hedvig  Gebhard,  born  December  14,  1867,  the  only  M.  P. 
who  was  elected  with  her  husband,  4,859  votes. 

Mrs.  Liisi  Kivioja,  born  January  10,  1857,  wife  of  a  minis- 
ter. 


114  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Miss  Hilda  Maria  Kakikoski,  born  January  30,  1864,  teacher 
in  a  lyceum,  20,411  votes. 

Miss  ]da  Wemmelpiui,  born  February  10,  1868,  principal  of  a 
popular  high  school. 

OF    THE     SOCIAL    DEMOCKATIC    PARTY. 

Miss  Ida  Aalle,  born  May  6.  1875,  lecturer,  6,869  votes. 

Mrs.  Anna  Maria  Huotari,  born  June  13,  1868,  officer  of  the 
S.  D.  Women's  Club,  11,685  votes. 

Mrs.  Mimnii  Kanervo,  born  May  26,  1870,  wife  of  a  work- 
man. 

Mrs.  Jenny  Maria  Kilpiainen,  born  January  20,  1882,  textile 
worker,  4,628  votes. 

Mrs.  Maria  Laine,  born  February  13,  1868,  wife  of  a  work- 
man, 5,593  votes. 

Mrs.  Hilja  Parssinen,  born  July  3,  1876,  teacher  and  editor 
of  the  S.  D.  women's  paper,  29,276  votes. 

Mrs.  Maria  Raunio,  born  May  26,  1872,  lecturer,  11,042  votes. 

Miss  Alexander  Reinholdsson,  born  July  1,  1873,  dressmaker 
and  lecturer  for  the  trade-union,  14,969  votes. 

Miss  Miina  Sillanapaa,  born  June  4,  1866,  editor  and  president 
of  the  servants'  trade-union,  20,484  votes. 

In  the  number  of  women  members  elected  the  Old  Fin- 
nish Party,  which  represents  conservatism,  ranks  next  to  the 
Social  Democratic,  which  stands  for  extreme  radicalism.  The 
woman  who  leads  in  number  of  votes  is  a  teacher  and  the 
second  on  the  list  is  Baroness  Gripenberg,  a  member  of  the  no- 
bility. 

When  in  the  various  districts  "house  mothers"  were  found 
who  were  good  speakers  or  organizers,  but  could  not  leave  their 
homes  and  children,  the  wom.en's  associations,  with  the  con- 
sent of  the  husbands,  paid  competent  women  to  do  the  house- 
work and  take  care  of  the  children,  thus  enabling  the  wives  and 
mothers  to  give  some  time  to  public  duties.  Thousands  of  wom- 
en live  in  remote  forests  and  far-off  villages  whom  it  was  al- 
most impossible  to  reach,  and  yet  so  thorough  was  the  canvas- 
sing that  the  election  returns  from  many  districts  show  a  larger 
proportion  of  women  voting  than  of  men.  Everywhere  they 
were  treated  with  entire  respect.    Some  of  them  went  to  the  polls 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  115 

on  crutches,  others  were  carried  in  chairs,  the  very  old  were  as- 
sisted by  the  young,   but  all   seem  to   have   voted. 

When  the  women  were  enfranchised  they  decided  that  rather 
than  form  new  parties  they  w^ould  join  the  old  ones  which  best 
represented  their  convictions,  but  that  they  would  not  submit 
blindly  to  dictation  merely  to  serve  political  interests.  For  many 
years  Finland  has  been  in  the  throes  of  a  bitter  struggle  and  the 
most  violent  party  animosities  have  been  aroused.  It  is  inevitable 
that  women  must  share  these  to  some  degree  and  it  is  also  evident 
that  women  could  not  wholly  eradicate  them  if  they  wished. 
Doubtless  here,  as  elsewhere,  political  evils  which  are  unavoid- 
able and  which  exist  everywhere  will  be  ascribed  to  woman  suf- 
frage by  its  enemies,  but  the  leaders  of  the  movement  in  Finland 
and  those  of  the  various  organizations  are  earnest  and  sincere 
in  desiring  to  make  political  and  social  conditions  better  through 
the  participation  of  women.  The  program  of  those  who  are  mem- 
bers of  parliament  has  not  been  definitely  announced,  but  it  is 
said  they  are  unanimous  in  the  determination  to  abolish  state  reg- 
ulation of  vice.  They  will  revise  the  marriage  laws,  raise  the 
age  of  consent  and  provide  better  care  for  illegitimate  children. 
On  these  and  other  measures  for  the  protection  of  women  and 
children,  and  which  will  tend  directly  toward  the  improvement  of 
society,  it  is  claimed  that  they  will  act  in  unison  without  any 
regard  for  party  lines. 

World's  Work.  17:  11419-20.  April,  1909. 
What  Woman  Suffrage  Does. 

In  the  campaign  for  woman  suffrage  in  the  Eastern  States, 
little  is  said  about  the  experience  of  those  Western  States  where 
women  have  long  voted;  and  the  reports  of  visitors  are  con- 
flicting. An  anti-suffrage  visitor  to  Colorado  will  report  that 
the  voting  of  the  w^omen  has  done  no  good;  and  a  suffragist 
will  report  that  it  has  met  all  reasonable  expectations,  and,  on 
occasion,  brought  good  results  that  could  not  otherwise  have 
been  dreamed  of.  In  fact,  this  experience  is  hard  to  report  fair- 
ly because  there  have  not  been  decisive  or  spectacular  results. 

But  the   conclusions   of   a   man   like   Judge   Lindsey,   of  the 


ii6  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Denver  Juvenile  Court,  are  especially  valuable ;  for  he  is  not 
only  a  shrewd  student  of  such  a  subject,  but  he  has  known 
it  from  the  inside  for  the  fourteen  years  since  it  has  been  in 
effect.     These  conclusions  are  : 

Respectable  women  do  go  to  the  polls.  Forty-two  per  cent, 
of  the  state  is  female,  and  an  average  of  40  per  cent,  of  the 
total  vote  is  cast  by  women.  The  low  classes  of  women,  there- 
fore, do  not  exert  a  disproportionate  influence  by  the  ballot. 

Women  who  have  husbands  or  fathers,  as  a  rule,  vote  as  their 
husbands  and  fathers  vote,  but  this  is  not  a  useless  duplication 
of  votes  any  more  than  the  votes  of  men  of  the  same  family 
which,  as  a  rule,  are  cast  for  the  same  candidates.  And  25  per 
cent,  of  the  women  earn  their  own  living. 

The  votes  of  women  have  not  taken  politics  out  of  the  con- 
trol of  the  corporations  nor  of  the  bosses.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered, however,  that  there  has  been  no  chance  directly  to  vote 
on  this  question.  But  fear  of  the  women  has  prevented  the  nom- 
inatipn  of  men  of  bad  morals  and  the  women  have  defeated  such 
men,  even  when  nominated  on  regular  tickets. 

The  net  result,  therefore,  has  not  been  very  impressive.  Yet 
the  ballot  for  women  is  not  regarded  as  an  experiment.  There 
is  no  thought  of  restricting  the  suffrage  to  males.  Nobody 
proposes  such  a  thing  or  would  dare  propose  it.  Woman  suf- 
frage is  universally  taken  for  granted  and  considered  right; 
and  the  people  of  Colorado  believe  that  the  other  states  ought 
to  adopt  it.  Besides  Colorado,  Idaho,  Utah,  and  Wyommg  have 
woman  suffrage,  and  in  these  states  there  is  no  thought  of  ever 
going  back  to  manhood  suffrage.  In  Washington,  the  Gover- 
nor has  just  signed  a  bill  which  provides  for  an  election  in  No- 
vember, 1910,  which  will  decide  whether  women  shall  be  allowed 
to  vote  in  that  state  or  not.  In  Australia  and  in  New  Zealand 
women  vote,  and  the  Parliament  of  Finland  has  women  as  mem- 
bers. Although  in  England  and  in  our  Eastern  States,  the  cam- 
paign may  not  be  successful  at  an  early  date,  sooner  or  later 
it  is  likely  to  win. 

Judge  Lindsey,  it  will  be  recalled,  was  re-elected  last  year  as 
Judge  of  the  Juvenile  Court  of  Denver,  as  an  independent  can- 
didate, and  he  received  more  votes  than  both  the  Democratic 
and  Republican  nominees,  and  it  was  the  votes  of  women  that 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  117 

elected  him.  On  other  occasions,  it  has  been  shown  that  the 
women  do  exert  a  definite  good  influence  when  questions  touch- 
ing the  home,  children,  and  personal  morals  take  such  form 
as  to  permit  a  clear-cut  expression  of  opinion  by  the  ballot. 
This  is  the  one  definite  gain  to  be  put  to  the  credit  of  women  as 
voters. 

The  question  of  the  adoption  of  woman  suffrage  in  the  East- 
ern States  is  a  social  question ;  and  the  difficulty  to  be  overcome 
is  the  purely  social  prejudice  against  it.  The  majority  of  women 
do  not  yet  care  for  it — in  fact,  probably  prefer  not  to  have  it; 
but  their  objection  is  not  based  on  political  reasons  nor  on  the 
experience  of  other  communities,  so  much  as  on  the  social  habits 
of  a  fixed  order  of  society  to  which  the  thought  of  practical 
affairs  is  more  or  less  repulsive.  A  society  that  has,  or  thinks 
that  it  has,  a  fixed  status  is  an  exceedingly  conservative  thing. 

But  woman  suffrage  does  not  go  backward.  It  holds  the 
ground  that  it  gains,  and  in  time  it  will  spread — as  fast  and 
as  far  as  the  mass  of  women  demand  it.  The  granting  of  it  in 
Sweden  shows  that  it  is  a  movement,  too,  that  is  not  confined 
to  English-speaking  countries. 


AFFIRMATIVE  DISCUSSION 

Arena.  lo:  201-13.  July,  1894. 

Last  Protest  Against  Woman's  Enfranchisement. 
James  L.  Hughes. 

One  reads  Professor  Goldwin  Smith's  essay  on  "Woman 
suffrage"  with  a  feeHng  of  regret  that  a  man  who  signed  John 
Stuart  Mill's  first  petition  in  favor  of  the  enfranchisement  of 
married  women  should  have  written  such  a  paper.  Liberal  men 
and  women  must  regard  his  generous  appeal  for  woman's  greater 
freedom  as  more  in  harmony  with  the  best  thought  of  the  pres- 
ent age  than  the  writing  of  his  essay.  Every  one  will  recognize 
the  moral  courage  of  the  man  who  writes  to  correct  what  he  con- 
ceives to  be  the  errors  promulgated  in  his  youth,  but  many  will 
doubtless  see  in  his  attitude  of  both  earlier  and  later  years,  the 
same  tendency  to  oppose  the  trend  of  popular  thought.  There  is 
nothing  unnatural  in  a  conflict  between  the  opinions  of  the  same 
individual  in  youth  and  age,  when  maturer  thought  and  broader 
vision  overcome  early  prejudices  and  imperfect  knowledge,  but 
regret  must  always  be  felt  when  advancing  years  transform  a 
champion  of  liberty  into  an  opponent  of  reforms  for  which  he 
once  labored. 

Professor  Smith's  reason  for  changing  his  attitude  is  ''that  the 
women  of  his  acquaintance  for  whom  he  had  most  respect,  and 
who  seemed  to  be  the  best  representatives  of  their  sex,  were 
opposed  to.  the  change."  This  is  not  a  very  logical  argument. 
Professor  Smith  is  too  liberal  a  man  to  refuse  the  franchise  to 
all  women  because  some  women  do  not  recognize  the  duty  of 
voting.  Duty  is  the  broad  ground  on  which  the  question 
rests.  Thousands  of  true,  pure,  home-loving  women  sincerely 
believe  it  to  be  their  duty  to  vote,  in  order  to  help  decide  great 
social  and  national  questions  that  affect  the  well-being  of  their 
country   and   their   homes.     They   surely   have    as    well    defined 


120  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

a  right  to  desire  to  vote  as  Professor  Smith's  friends  have  to 
oppose  woman's  enfranchisement.  The  women  of  my  acquain- 
tance whom  I  most  esteem  do  wish  to  vote.  They  do  not,  how- 
ever, wish  to  compel  Professor  Smith's  friends  to  vote ;  neither 
should  his  friends  have  the  right  to  prevent  mine  from  voting. 
This  is  an  age  of  individual  liberty.  Right  and  duty  and  con- 
science should  guide  us.  Even  majorities  should  never  tyrannize 
over  minorities  in  such  a  way  as  to  prevent  the  honest  expres- 
sion of  opinions  in  the  most  effectual  way — by  marking  a  ballot. 
Professor  Smith's  article  is  a  discussion  of  the  marriage  rela- 
tions of  men  and  women ;  of  the  admission  of  women  to  uni- 
versities and  to  professions ;  of  the  relative  amounts  paid  men 
and  women  for  their  work  and  similar  questions,  quite  as  much 
as  of  suffrage.  All  these  are  related  to  that  of  suffrage  indirect- 
ly, it  is  true ;  but  they  should  be  introduced  into  a  consideration 
of  the  suffrage  question  only  so  far  as  the  enfranchisement  of 
women  can  be  shown  to  be  of  evil  or  good  influence  in  regard 
,to  them.  It  seems  unnecessary  to  discuss,  in  an  article  on  woman 
suffrage,  the  merits  or  demerits  of  all  the  efforts  made  to  secure 
woman's  freedom.  If  allowing  woman  to  vote  prevents  her 
marrying  or  unfits  her  for  home  duties  or  leads  to  want  of 
true  harmony  in  the  family,  these  are  clearly  legitimate  reasons 
against  woman  suffrage ;  but  beyond  these  limits,  the  matri- 
monial subject,  historical  or  philosophical,  is  logically  out  of 
place  in  dealing  with  the  right  or  wrong,  the  expediency  or  in- 
expediency, of  woman  suffrage.  The  same  criticism  holds  in 
regard  to  other  matters  incidentally  related  to  the  subject  under 
consideration.  The  fact  that  Mill  in  his  "Subjection  of  women" 
may  be  wrong  in  his  views  concerning  marriage,  or  that  an 
occasional  intemperate  advocate  of  woman  suffrage,  may  have 
attributed  woman's  subordination  to  man's  wicked  desire  to  en- 
slave her,  does  not  justify  so  able  a  writer  as  Professor  Smith 
in  a  further  entanglement  of  subjects  not  logically  related.  He' 
should  have  swept  away  confusing  elements.  Most  advocates 
of  woman's  enfranchisement  will  agree  with  Professor  Smith's 
opinion  that  "Woman's  disabilities  are  the  results  of  primitive 
conditions  under  which  both  men  and  women  suffered,  and 
from  which  both  are  in  process  of  ^emancipation.  Whatever  may 
now  be  obsolete   in   the   relations   of  husband   and   wife  is   not 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  121 

a  relic  of  slavery  but  of  primitive  marriage,  and  may  be  re- 
garded as  at  worst  an  arrangement  once  indispensable  which 
has  survived  its  hour."  In  this  conclusion  of  his  elaborate 
argument  Professor  Smith  is  more  nearly  correct  than  Mill, 
logically  and  historically.  It  is  equally  true,  however,  that  very 
many  liberal  men  and  v/omen  think  that  the  present  conventional 
ideal  of  marriage  retains  some  of  the  evils  of  that  "primitive 
arrangement"  which  have  survived  beyond  their  proper  hour. 
Such  questions  will  be  considered  in  this  article  only  so  far 
as  they  are  directly  related  to  woman  suffrage. 

The  general  basis  on  which  woman  suffrage  should  stand 
or  fall,  as  laid  down  by  Professor  Smith,  is  clear  and  fair:— 

That  to  which  every  member  of  a  community,  whether  man, 
woman  or  child,  whether  white  or  black,  whether  above  or  below 
the  age  of  twenty-one,  has  a  right,  is  the  largest  attainable  meas- 
ure of  good  government.  If  this  [woman  suffrage]  or  any  other 
political  change  would  be  conducive  to  good  government,  the  whole 
community  has  a  right  to  it;  if  it  would  not,  the  whole  com- 
munity including  women  or  those,  whoever  they  may  be, 
whom  it  proposes  to  enfranchise,  has  a  right  to  a  refusal  of  the 
change. 

What  is  good  for  woman,  is  good  in  the  same  measure  for 
man,   and    ought   not   for   a    moment   to  be   withheld. 

The  plain  question  is  whether  the  exercise  of  political  power 
by  women  w«uld  be  generally  conducive  to  good  government;  if 
it  would  not,  the  concession  would  be  a  wrong  done  to  the  whole 
community. 

These  statements  are  honorable  and  just.  Woman  demands 
no  special  laws.  She  asks  her  place  as  a  citizen,  and  wishes 
only  to  stand,  a  free  woman,  side  by  side  with  her  brother 
man  to  aid  in  working  out  the  highest  destiny  of  humanity. 
Where  her  influence  would  be  evil  instead  of  good  she  has  no 
desire  to  go.  More  than  this,  she  is  willing  to  trust  enlightened 
and  liberal  men  to  decide  in  regard  to  the  justness  and  the  wis- 
dom of  her  claims  to  the  right  of  a  higher  and  broader  sphere 
of  duty. 

Professor  Smith  is  right,  too,  when  he  says,  "As  to  the 
equality  of  the  sexes,  no  question  is  necessarily  raised."  The 
question  of  woman  suffrage  can  be  settled  entirely  independently 
of  abstract  discussions  regarding  woman's  complete  equality 
with  man.  Many  fair-minded  people  are  driven  to  take  an  an- 
tagonistic attitude  toward  woman  suffrage  because  its  advocates 
unnecessarily  raise  incidental  discussion  regarding  the  equality 
of  the  sexes  which  are  misleading.     It  is  fair  to  advocates  of 


122  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

equal  suffrage  to  say  that  their  use  of  the  word  "equality" 
has  been  misunderstood.  The  claim  to  equality  does  not  mean 
that  woman's  nature  is  the  same  as  man's;  but  that  woman 
should  be  equal  with  man  in  legal  rights,  and  free  to  use  her 
power  for  good  as  man  may — by  pen  and  tongue  and  vote.  The 
questions  of  equality  in  brain  power,  in  physique  and  in  natural 
tendencies,  cannot  logically  be  made  the  basis  of  argument 
either  for  or  against  woman  suffrage.  Whatever  woman's 
powers  are,  they  constitute  her  individuality,  and  this  individ- 
uality is  the  complement  of  man's,  and  is  as  essential  as  his 
in  securing  perfect  harmony  in  any  department  of  human  work. 

Beyond  this  point,  even  Professor  Smith's  beautiful  language 
cannot  charm  us  into  partial  agreement  with  him.  The  reasons 
for  differing  from  his  conclusions  will  be  found  in  the  following 
answers  to  his  arguments,  which  are  given  in  his  own  words : — 

"A  man  may  have  liberty  without  a  vote,  and  a  vote  without 
liberty."  This  statement  is  more  epigrammatic  than  accurate. 
No  man  is  free  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word  unless  he  has 
the  fullest  rights  of  citizenship,  independent  of  all  limitations. 
The  right  to  vote  is  the  highest  test  of  liberty. 

"Women  cannot  claim  the  suffrage  as  a  class,  since  they  are 
not  a  class  but  a  sex."  The  injustice  of  refusing  the  suffrage 
to  a  sex  is  much  greater  than  refusing  it  to  a  race  or  a  class. 
No  race  or  class  includes  half  the  people  in  the  world.  But 
women  do  not  claim  the  suffrage  either  as  a  class  or  a  sex  ; 
they  claim  it  as  individuals — as  beings  created  by  God,  and 
held  responsible  for  their  acts  quite  as  much  as  men  are.  They 
realize  their  power  to  think,  and  they  ask  the  right  to  crystallize 
their  thoughts  into  effective  agencies  against  evil.  They  deny 
that  the  fact  of  being  women  destroys  their  individuality  or  re- 
lieves them  of  responsibility.  Women  do  not  think  it  right  to 
give  the  suffrage  to  any  class  as  a  class,  but  to  all  honest  in- 
dividuals capable  of  using  it  intelligently. 

"For  an  abstract  claim  of  right  there  appears  to  be  no 
foundation.  Power  which  is  natural  carries  with  it  right, 
though  it  is  subject  to  the  restraint  of  conscience."  This  is 
simply  a  beautifully  masked  assertion  of  the  horrible  doctrine 
that  "Might  is  right."  It  ignores  the  fact,  too,  that  intellectual 
and   spiritual  powers  are  the  highest  powers,  and  that  they  are 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  123 

"natural  powers"  quite  as  much  as  physical  force  is.  Nothing- 
but  the  inherited  tendency  to  assume  superiority  for  the  male 
sex,  could  lead  a  liberal  and  cultured  man  to  state  that  man  has 
any  abstract  right  to  vote  that  does  not  belong  equally  to  woman. 
Woman  is  governed  by  law  as  man  is ;  woman  may  own  prop- 
erty and  pay  taxes  as  man  does ;  woman  is  interested  in  the 
home  and  in  the  state  as  fully  as  man  is;  woman  is  as  much 
interested  in  her  children  as  man  is;  woman  is  a  responsible  in- 
dividual quite  as  much  as  man  is.  It  is  utterly  unjust  to  say 
that  every  abstract  claim  of  right  that  can  be  established  in  favor 
of  man's  voting  does  not  belong  equally  to  woman. 

"Man  alone  can  uphold  government  and  enforce  the  law. 
Let  the  edifice  of  law  be  as  moral  as  you  will,  its  foundation  is 
the  force  of  the  community,  and  the  force  of  the  community 
is  male.  Laws  passed  by  the  woman's  vote  will  be  felt  to 
have  no  force  behind  them.  Would  the  stronger  sex  obey  any 
laws  manifestly  carried  by  the  female  vote,  in  the  interests  of 
woman  against  man?  Man  would  be  tempted  to  resist  woman's 
government  when  it  galled  him."  Women  have  made  no  pro- 
posal to  establish  a  government  by  women.  They  strongly 
object  to  government  by  one  sex,  either  male  or  female.  It  is 
not  possible  to  have  all  the  men  voting  on  one  side,  and  all  the 
women  on  the  other.  All  women  do  not  think  alike,  nor  will 
they  ever  vote  unanimously  any  more  than  do  the  men.  It 
is  purely  imaginary  to  speak  of  woman's  government.  Govern- 
ment will  always  be  maintained  by  a  majority  composed  of  the 
united  votes  of  men  and  women.  Moreover  votes  are  now  cast 
in  the  ballot  box,  and  it  will  not  be  possible  to  find  out  whether 
the  majority  consists  chiefly  of  men  or  of  women.  Therefore  it 
is  clear  that  the  question  of  force  cannot  be  brought  into  the 
suffrage  discussion.  The  force  of  a  nation  must  remain  on  the 
side  of  the  majority.  But  modern  governments  do  not  rely  on 
force  for  their  existence  or  for  the  execution  of  their  laws.  The 
edicts  of  despots  had  to  be  forced  on  unwilling  people.  Rebels 
to-day  know  that  their  rebellion  is  not  against  kings  or  gov- 
ernments, but  against  the  will  of  the  people.  Men  submit  to 
laws  because  they  have  shared  in  making  them. 

"The  transfer  of  power  from  the  military  to  the  unmilitary 
sex  involves  a  change  in  the  character  of  a  nation.     It  involves 


124  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

in  short,  national  emasculation."  Again  it  is  assumed  that  wom- 
an suffrage  means  woman's  rule  and  man's  dethronement.  Again 
it  must  be  stated  that  unity  of  rule  is  the  aim  of  all  reputable 
advocates  of  woman's  enfranchisement.  It  is  probable  this 
would  result  in  "a  change  in  the  character  of  the  nation,"  but  not 
such  a  change  as  that  dreaded  by  Professor  Smith.  The  "war" 
argument  is  a  very  old  one,  often  answered.  Women  suffer  as 
much  as  men  from  war.  Their  hardships  at  home  are  often 
equal,  and  their  anxieties  greater  than  those  of  the  soldiers  on 
the  field  or  in  the  camp.  These  soldiers  are  husbands,  sons, 
brothers  or  lovers  of  sorrowing  women.  Many  women  labor  in 
hospitals  and  various  other  ways  for  the  soldiers.  Woman's 
work  is  not  man's  work,  nor  man's  work  woman's,  in  war  or 
in  peace ;  but  her  work  is  quite  as  needful  to  the  world's 
advancement,  both  in  peace  and  war,  as  man's.  The  time 
Cometh,  too,  when  *'War  shall  be  no  more,"  and,  however  men 
may  sneer  at  woman  suffrage,  woman's  work  -will  aid  in  the  ful- 
filment of  this  prophecy. 

"One  of  the  features  of  a  revolutionary  era  is  the  prevalence 
of  a  feeble  facility  of  abdication.  The  holders  of  power,  how- 
ever natural  and  legitimate  it  may  be,  are  too  ready  to  resign 
at  the  first  demand."  This  is  an  age  of  evolution,  not  of  revolu- 
tion. In  the  suffrage  question,  for  instance,  no  one  proposes  to 
disenfranchise  man  and  enfranchise  woman  in  his  stead.  That 
would  be  revolutionary.  The  proposal  of  this  era  is  to  recognize 
the  duty  and  extend  the  right  of  voting  to  interested,  intelligent 
and  responsible  human  beings  who  are  not  now  enfranchised. 
This  is  just  and  reasonable  evolution.  It  may  seem  presumptu- 
ous to  hesitate  to  accept  the  statement  of  so  eminent  an  historical 
authority  as  Professor  Smith,  but  the  impression  does  not  pre- 
vail generally  that  the  holders  of  power  are  too  ready  to  resign 
at  the  first  demand.  Absolutism  granted  the  Magna  Charta  with 
a  very  bad  grace.  The  swords  of  the  barons  were  more  cogent 
than  the  king's  "feeble  facility  of  abdication."  The  privileged 
holders  of  authority  have  never  shown  a  tendency  to  yield  grace- 
fully even  to  the  demands  of  freedom  and  justice.  It  is  a 
, glorious  truth  that  as  men  grow  more  free,  they  become  more 
just.  Each  generation  transmits  more  liberal  instincts  than  it 
received.     Relics   of   barbaric   injustice   are    swept   away   rapidly 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  125 

by  the  ever  rising  tide  of  popular  freedom.  More  can  be  ac- 
complished now  in  a  year  of  light  than  formerly  in  a  century 
of  darkness.  The  high  priest  of  aggressive  liberalism  should 
not  describe  the  surrender  of  wrong  to  the  ever  increasing  power 
of  enlightened  progressiveness  as  the  "feeble  facility  of  abdica- 
tion." 

"The  elevation  of  woman  is  a  different  thing  from  assimila- 
tion to  man.''  Woman  does  not  ask  assimilation  to  man.  She 
could  not  be  assimilated  if  she  wished  such  a  change.  God 
made  her  woman,  and  she  cannot  make  herself  man.  He>* 
meiiia)  and  moral  nature  is  as  distinctive  as  her  physical  nature. 
Just  why  Professor  Smith  imagines  that  the  suffrage  would 
assimilate  her  to  man  is  not  clear.  He  grants  woman  the  right 
lo  think,  cUid  to  express  her  thoughts  in  books  or  on  the  plat- 
form. These  things  do  not  assimilate  her  to  man ;  neither 
would  the  making  of  a  ballot  paper. 

"Woman,  if  she  becomes  a  man,  will  be  a  weaker  man." 
This  statement  rests  upon  a  misconception.  Women  do  not 
wish  to  be  virified.  Women  are  not  virihed  by  public  work. 
Tliey  write  learnedly  on  public  questions  without  loss  of  wom- 
anly tenderness  or  grace.  Surely  Professor  Smith  does  not  ex- 
pect that  going  once  in  four  or  five  years,  or  even  once  a 
year,  to  vote  will  make  a  woman  virile.  Lucy  Stone  could 
quell  riotous  mobs  at  anti-slavery  meetings,  but  she  was  always 
a  sweet-voiced,  modest  little  woman,  and  she  loved  her  hus- 
band and  babe  as  well  as  any  wife  or  mother  ever  did.  Mrs. 
IJowe  and  Mrs.  Livermore  have  struck  strong  blows  nobly  for 
woman's  freedom,  and  for  many  other  great  reforms,  but , 
the  tongues  whose  eloquence  raised  the  people  to  great  deeds, 
also  sung  sweet  lullabies  to  happy  children  in  their  model 
homes.  They  are  now  silver-haired  women  more  than  seventy 
years  old,  but  they  are  as  distinctly  womanly  as  any  of  their 
Christian  sisters  in  the  world.  Women  cannot  be  transformed 
into  men.  If  they  could  be  there  would  be  less  hope  in  their 
enfranchisement.  Woman  suffrage  will  not  merely  increase  votes 
— it  will  bring  a  new  element  into  the  voting  power  of  the 
world.  Women  are  essentially  different  from  men,  and  they 
cannot  become  like  men.  The  unity  of  the  woman  element  with 
the  man  element  in  character,  is  as  essential  to  true  harmony 
and  true  progress  in  the  state  as  in  the  house. 


126  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

'*If  woman  becomes  a  man  she  must  be  prepared  to  resign 
her  privilege  as  a  woman.  She  cannot  expect  to  have  both 
privilege  and  equality."  Thoughtful  women  demand  no  privi- 
lege because  they  are  women.  They  would  be  satisfied  if  they 
could  stand  beside  their  brothers  on  a  perfectly  equal  footing. 
They  reject  subordination,  and  they  resent  the  patronizing  gal- 
lantry which  assumes  their  inferiority  or  their  vanity.  They  see 
that  their  sex  has  been  weakened  both  by  subjection  and  by 
sentimental  gallantry.  It  is  not  complimentary  to  men  to  assume 
that  they  are  courteous  to  women  because  they  believe  them  to 
be  inferior  or  weaker,  or  that  men  would  be  less  polite  to 
women  if  women  had  the  privilege  of  living  up  to  their  highest 
ideals  of  duty  by  taking  part  in  the  development  of  their  country. 
Neither  is  it  complimentary  to  womanhood  to  tell  women  that 
they  have  special  privileges  because  they  are  effeminate,  and  that 
they  will  lose  these  privileges  unless  they  respectfully  keep  their 
places  in  the  sphere  assigned  to  them  by  men.  Even  Professor 
Smith's  exquisite  language  fails  to  give  dignity  to  this  old  "Then 
you  may  stand  in  the  street  car"  argument. 

"What  leaders  of  the  women's  rights  movement  practically 
seek  is,  for  the  woman  power  without  responsibility;  for  the 
man  responsibility  without  power."  Both  these  statements  mis- 
represent the  men  and  women  who  advocate  woman  suffrage. 
Women  recognize  their  responsilibity ;  at  least  those  who  ask 
enfranchisement  do  so.  Experience  would  deepen  this  sense. 
Some"  women  do  not  ask  the  right  to  vote  simply  because  they 
do  not  recognize  their  responsibility,  but  those  who  clearly  see 
It  merely  ask  the  right  to  do  their  duty.  Women  do  not  seek 
to  take  the  power  out  of  men's  hands  but  wish  to  share  power 
as  well  as  responsibility  with  them. 

"The  number  of  women  who  have  spontaneously  asked  for 
the  change  appears  to  be  small."  Every  extension  of  the  fran- 
chise from  the  time  of  Simon  de  Montfort  to  the  present, 
might  at  first  have  been  objected  to  on  the  same  ground.  No 
other  unenfranchised  body  ever  awakened  to  a  sense  of  the  in- 
justice of  being  refused  the  ballot  so  rapidly  as  women  have, 
during  the  past  ten  years.  If  this  argument  had  force,  it  might 
have  been  used  to  prevent  every  progressive  movement  in  the  de- 
velopment  of   civilization.      Even    Christianity   itself   must    have 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  127 

been  condemned  if  it  had  been  tested  by  the  number  who  "spon- 
taneously" asked  for  it. 

"There  appears  to  be  a  tendency  among  the  leaders  of  the 
revolt  of  woman  to  disparage  matrimony  as  a  bondage,  and 
the  rearing  of  children  is  an  aim  too  low  for  intellectual  being." 
It  is  natural  to  suppose  that  this  general  statement  is  limited 
to  the  female  leaders  of  the  so-called  revolt.  No  one  would 
charge  such  men  as  Wendell  Phillips,  George  William  Curtis, 
Phillip  Brooks,  Joseph  Cook,  T.  W.  Higginson,  Emerson, 
Longfellow,  Whittier,  Bishop  Simpson,  Charles  Sumner,  Chief 
Justice  Chase.  Charles  Kingsley,  Professor  Huxley,  or  more  than 
half  the  members  of  the  British  Parliament  with  such  a  tendency. 
The  Countess  of  Aberdeen  is  president  of  the  Woman's  En- 
franchisement Association  in  England.  Lucy  Stone,  Mary  A. 
Livermore  and  Julia  Ward  Howe  led  the  woman  suffrage  move- 
ment in  America.  The  leadership  of  these  noble  women  did 
not  interfere  with  their  motherhood.  All  distinguished  women 
do  not  marry — neither  do  all  distinguished  men. 

"Women  must  bear  and  nurse  children,  and  if  they  do  this, 
it  is  impossible  that  they  should  compete  with  men  in  occupations 
which  demand  complete  devotion  as  well  as  superior  strength  of 
muscle  or  brain !"  This  argument  might  fairly  be  ruled  out  of 
a  discussion  on  woman  suffrage,  but  it  may  be  answered  in 
several  ways.  Women  do  not  wish  to  compete  with  men  in  all 
occupations.  They  are  the  best  judges  of  what  they  should  or 
should  not  do,  and  every  rule  of  fair  play  demands  that  they 
be  allowed  to  decide  for  themselves.  Not  all  women  get  the 
opportunity  of  marrying.  Voting  is  not  a  laborious  occupation, 
requiring  "complete  devotion  as  well  as  superior  strength."  It 
means  but  a  pleasant  walk  and  a  few  minutes'  time.  Canvassing 
will  not  always  be  an  important  factor  in  elections,  and  so  long 
as  it  has  to  be  done,  married  women  with  young  families  can 
be  spared  from  taking  part  in  it.  There  are  plenty  of  men 
and  unmarried  women,  and  widows  and  married  women  with 
grown-up  children,  to  do  all  the  essential  work  of  electioneering. 
Voting  would  waste  none  of  woman's  strength,  and  not  so  much 
of  her  time  as  is  needed  to  make  a  fashionable  call.  But  many 
married  women  have  to  bear  and  raise  their  children,  and  earn 
most  of  the  money  for  their  support,  too.     There  are  too  many 


128  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

cases  in  cities  where  women  support  drunken  husbands  in  addi- 
tion to  their  children,  yet  on  election  day  the  husband  may  vote 
for  the  politicians  who  license  the  drink  traffic,  while  the  suffer- 
ing wife  has  no  right  to  vote  for  the  protection  of  herself  and 
her  children. 

''Hitherto  the  family  has  been  a  unit,  represented  in  the  state 
by  its  head ;  a  change  that  throws  the  family  into  the  political 
caldron  surely  calls  for  special  consideration."  Hitherto  the 
family  has  not  been  represented  at  all  as  a  unity.  One  unit  in 
the  family  has  represented  himself  and  assumed  to  represent 
others.  The  man  who  gathers  the  adult  members  of  his  family 
together  to  consult  them  with  a  view  of  representing  the  opinion 
of  the  majority  of  them  by  his  vote,  would  be  a  curiosity.  No 
man  can,  with  any  sense  of  fairness,  be  said  to  represent  his 
family  unless  he  does  this.  The  family  has  not  always  been  a 
unit,  because,  in  many  cases,  the  father  and  several  adult  sons  in 
the  same  family  have  votes.  This  fact  has  not  disrupted  the 
peace  of  reasonable  families.  It  is  a  strange  conception  of 
family  harmony  that  husband  and  wife  must  think  alike  in  re- 
gard to  all  subjects.  This  would  not  be  true  harmony,  it  would 
be  mere  sameness ;  and  it  is  only  logically  conceivable  on  the  sur- 
render of  the  individuality  of  one  to  that  of  the  other.  This  can 
never  occur  without  degradation  to  the  one  who  has  to  submit. 
Woman  has  had  too  much  of  such  degradation.  Why  should 
two  reasonable  beings  cease  to  recognize  each  others'  right  to  in- 
dependent judgment  because  they  are  married  to  each  other? 
Woman  suffrage  will  elevate  the  condition  of  both  husband  and 
wife.  The  wife  will  be  emancipated  from  a  subjection  pro- 
nounced by  God  to  be  a  curse,  and  the  husband  will  be  saved 
from  the  debasing  selfishness  of  believing  himself  to  be  the  only 
member  of  his  household  worthy  of  being  entrusted  with  the 
dignity  of  voting. 

"When  party  lays  its  hand  on  the  home,  those  who  care  for 
the  home  more  than  for  party  receive  a  warning  to  be  on  their 
guard."  The  home  should  be  a  vital  element  in  national  life. 
Whoever  brings  the  home  element  to  bear  more  directly  on  poli- 
tics is  a  benefactor  to  his  race.  The  larger  the  voting  power  of 
a  home,  the  greater  its  influence  becomes  in  moulding  the  laws 
by  which  homes  are  to  be  governed.  Woman  directly  represents 
the  home,  therefore   she   should  vote. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  129 

.  "Man's  life  is  more  or  less  public,  while  that  of  woman  is  in 
the  home.''  Granting  the  correctness  of  this  statement,  does  it 
not  prove  the  need  of  women  suffrage  in  order  that  the  home 
may  be  representd  in  the  body  politic?  Is  the  home  of  so  little 
consequence  to  the  state  that  it  needs  no  direct  representation? 
The  home  element  is  the  most  important  in  the  state;  and  the 
fact  that  "The  life  of  the  woman  is  in  the  home"  proves  beyond 
a  doubt  that  woman  is  naturally  intended  to  speak  and  vote  for 
the  home. 

"Men  feel  as  a  sex  the  full  measure  of  responsibility  in  pub- 
lic action.  This  is  not  felt  as  strongly  by  their  partners."  It 
would  be  a  great  blessing  if  by  a  stroke  of  his  magic  pen  Pro- 
fessor Smith  could  make  men  live  up  to  the  first  of  these  state- 
ments. Comparatively  few  men  realize  the  sacred  responsibility 
of  public  action,  even  in  voting.  It  may  be  true  that  men  feel 
public  responsibility  more  than  women.  There  is  only  one  way 
in  which  it  can  become  clear  to  the  mind  of  either  man  or 
woman,  and  that  is  by  doing  duty.  Self  activity  is  an  absolute 
essential  in  revealing  thought,  feeling  or  responsibility.  Women 
will  feel  the  responsibilities  of  public  duties  when  they  are 
allowed  to  perform  them. 

"Have  women  as  a  sex  any  wrongs  which  male  legislators 
cannot  be  expected  to  redress?"  This  is  not  the  question. 
Women  do  not  ask  the  right  to  vote  merely  to  redress  their 
wrongs.  They  ask  the  franchise  because  they  believe  themselves 
to  be  important  elements  in  the  national  life  of  the  country  in 
which  thy  live.  They  seek  to  vote  and  claim  the  right  to  be 
elected  to  positions  on  school  boards,  municipal  councils,  and 
even  in  legislatures,  parliaments  and  congresses,  in  order  that 
they  may  elevate  the  tone  of  public  morals,  and  aid  in  securing 
laws  for  the  protection  of  their  brothers,  sisters,  sons  and 
daughters.  They  do  not  wish  to  vote  only  for  women  or  on 
questions  relating  to  women.  They  know  that  "Unconscious- 
ness of  sex  is  essential  to  the  best  work  of  either  sex."  They 
wish  to  stand  side  by  side  with  men  in  working  out  the  grandest 
destiny  of  the  race.  It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  say,  howefver. 
that  male  legislatures  never  can  represent  women  fully.  No 
legislature  composed  of  one  class  or  sex  ever  has  represented  or 
ever  can  represent  another  class  or  sex.    Again,  until  women  are 


130  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

allowed  to  vote  no  legislature  of  any  kind  can  possibly  represent 
them.  Representation  necessitates  voluntary  choice  on  the  pan 
of  those  represented.  Unless  a  parliament  is  elected  by  women 
as  well  as  men  it  cannot  claim  to  represent  women  in  any 
accurate  sense. 

"Male  legislatures  have  already  gone  far  in  giving  women 
statutory  protection."  Women  do  not  ask  protection.  They 
ask  justice.  They  ask  recognition  of  their  powers,  and  of  their 
right  to  use  them.  They,  ask  freedom  to  perform  their  duty  as 
they  conceive  it.  True  women  resent  man's  ideal  that  woman  is 
a  weak  and  delicate  being  to  be  protected.  From  what  are  they 
to  be  protected?  The  only  protection  they  need  is  from  man 
himself,  in  his  assumption  of  their  just  rights  and  privileges. 
Woman  claims  liberty,  not  protection.  She  is  not  content  with 
barbaric  or  oriental  subordination,  nor  with  the  equally  degrading 
ideal  of  an  extravagant  chivalry.  She  asks  recognition  as  a  good, 
sensible,  human  being,  with  powers  as  distinct  and  as  essential  as 
man's,  which  she  purposes  to  use  in  cooperation  with  man  in 
working  out  human   destiny. 

"There  remain  few  bars  to  the  competition  of  women  with 
men  in  the  professions  and  trades."  Why  should  there  be  any 
artificial  barriers  in  woman's  way  to  prevent  her  doing  any 
honest  work  for  which  she  has  a  taste,  and  for  which  she  deems 
herself  fitted?  What  right  has  man  to  raise  any  barriers  against 
woman?  What  right  have  women  even  to  bar  any  pathway 
against  an  individual  woman  who  wishes  to  walk  therein?  Lib- 
eral men  and  women  are  rapidly  sweeping  away  the  conven- 
tionalities that  have  crippled  the  efforts  of  women  circumscribed 
their  spheres  and  dwarfed  their  very  souls ;  but  every  step 
towards  the  light  has  been  taken  in  opposition  to  unprogressive 
men  and  conventional  women  who  vainly  tried  to  check  enlight- 
ening truth. 

"That  women  have  confidence  in  the  justice  and  affection  of 
men  their  present  appeal  shows ;  for  it  is  f ron\  man's  free  will 
that  they  must  expect  the  cession  of  the  suffrage."  Women  have 
confidence  in  the  justice  of  enlightened  and  unprejudiced  men, 
and  they  are  now  engaged  in  enlightening  man  and  freeing  him 
from  his  dwarfing  prejudices.  The  fact  that  the  ablest  modern 
theologians  and  social  scientists  and  many  of  the  greatest  states- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  131 

men  are  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage,  gives  woman  confidence  in 
man's  justice.  The  recent  majority  in  the  British  House  of 
Commons  naturally  strengthens  the  confidence,  but  it  does  more, 
it  increases  woman's  faith  in  the  justice  of  her  cause.  Woman 
asks  man  to  undo  a  great  wrong,  and  she  believes  he  will  be  wise 
enough  to  recognize  woman's  responsible  individuality,  and  just 
enough  to  free  her  from  the  restrictions  of  a  primitive  civiliza- 
tion. The  fact  that  woman  appeals  to  man  for  justice,  does  not 
prove  that  women  should  be  satisfied  to  allow  man  alone  to 
continue  to  make  the  laws,  but  the  reverse.  She  appeals  to  man 
because  at  present  he  holds  the  power  in  his  own  hands,  so  that 
her  appeal  cannot  logically  be  used,  as  Professor  Smith  uses  it, 
for  the  basis  of  an  argument  against  woman  suffrage. 

'Ts  it  not  because  women  have  kept  out  of  politics,  and  gen- 
erally out  of  the  contention  arena,  that  they  have  remained 
gentle,  tender  and  delicate  women?"  Politics  should  not  be  de- 
grading. It  is  discreditable  to  men  that  the  sacred  duty  of  state- 
craft should  be  associated  with  any  processes  or  experiences  of  a 
debasing  character.  But  the  presence  of  woman  purifies  politics. 
The  women  of  Wyoming  are  as  womanly  and  as  gentle  as  those 
in  the  neighboring  states  where  women  do  not  vote.  The 
women  who  lead  in  municipal  reforms  in  England,  or  who  cham- 
pion the  cause  of  woman's  enfranchisement  there,  are  as  true 
and  pure  and  sweet-voiced  as  those  who  are  conventional  models. 
Politics  should  mean  high  thinking  on  social  and  national 
questions,  and  the  carrying  out  of  calm  decisions  by  voting  for 
right  measures.  Thinking  about  her  country's  history  and  pres- 
ent condition,  its  hopes  and  relationships  to  other  countries,  need 
not  destroy  a  woman's  gentleness.  Strength  of  character  does 
not  rob  woman  of  her  witching  charm.  The  condition  of  politics, 
as  admitted  by  Professor  Smith,  indicates  the  need  of  women's 
elevating,  purifying  influence. 

"At  present  the  demand  in  England  is  only  for  the  enfran- 
chisement of  spinsters  and  widows.  But  this  limitation,  while 
it^  betrays  a  consciousness  that  there  .would  be  danger  to  the 
peace  and  order  of  the  family,  is  understood  to  be  merely  a 
stroke  of  tactics.  Widow  and  spinster  suffrage  is  the  thin  edge 
of  the  wedge."  Women  have  not  been  satisfied  from  the  be- 
ginning with  "widow  and  spinster  suffrage,"  nor  did  they  ever 


132  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

admit  for  a  moment  that  the  enfranchisement  of  married  women 
would  "endanger  the  peace  and  order  of  the  family."  Women 
accepted  jnst  what  men  were  liberal  enough  to  give,  and  men 
declined  to  allow  married  women  to  vote  because  '*They  were 
already  represented  by  their  husbands."  Professor  Smith  ad- 
mits that  ''Erom  the  political  point  of  view  there  would  be 
manifest  absurdity  and  wrong  in  making  marriage  politically 
penal,  and  excluding  from  the  franchise  the  very  women 
who  are  commonly  held  to  be  best  discharging  the  duties  of  their 
sex,  and  would  be  likely  to  be  its  fairest  representatives."  The 
advocates  of  woman  suffrage  say  "amen"  to  this.  They  think 
it  strange  that  men  are  willing  to  allow  a  woman  to  vote  until 
she  marries,  and  then  say  to  her  practically,  "Since  you  were 
foolish  enough  to  marry  a  man  you  are  no  longer  worthy  of 
being  trusted  with  a  ballot."  Such  a  law  is  absurd  and  wrong, 
but  women  did  not  make  it.  The  law  that  women  would  like  to 
have  prevail  everywhere  is  that  in  force  in  New  Zealand, — 
"Every  person  of  the  age  of  twenty-one  years  shall  be  entitled  to 
vote  in  all  elections." 

"The  woman  of  the  political  platform  does  not  limit  her  am- 
bition to  a  vote.  She  wants  to  sit  in  Parliament  or  in  Congress. 
Why  not?  Many  of  the  men  in  any  parliament  or  congress  could 
easily  be  replaced  by  women  of  larger  intelligence,  greater 
breadth  of  view  and  better  education.  There  are  plenty  of 
women  of  leisure  whose  duties  would  permit  them  to  assume  the 
responsibilities  of  representing  their  fellow  citizens  in  parlia- 
ment. There  is  no  new  principle  in  this  idea.  Women  have  long 
been  elected  to  positions  on  school  boards  and  municipal  coun- 
cils. Tt  might,  as  Professor  Smith  says,  "shock  the  prejudices" 
of  some  conventional  people  at  first  to  see  women  in  Parliament, 
but  prejudices  have  a  habit  of  being  shocked  by  the  practical 
developments  of  our  progressive  age.  The  best  thing  to  do  with 
prejudices  is  to  shock  them.  Prejudices  must  always  yield  to 
common  sense  and  justice,  and  each  successive  generation  be- 
comes freer  from  the  bondage  of  prejudices.  It  will  be  a  great 
event  in  the  world's  history  when  the  first  woman  takes  her  seat 
in  Congress  or  Parliament.  When  the  happy  time  comes,  the 
world  will  marvel  that  it  took  so  many  centuries  to  accomplish 
such  manifest  justice.    There  is  no  danger  that  women  will  turn 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  133 

all  the  men  out  of  Parliament.  It  would  be  as  unjust  and  as 
unwise  to  have  the  men  ruled  by  women  alone,  as  it  now  is  to 
have  women  ruled  by  men  alone. 

''Wyoming  and  New  Zealand  have  made  the  experiment  of 
woman  suffrage.  Let  them  fairly  try  it,  and  if  the  result  is 
good,  let  the  rest  of  the  world  follow.  Let  Wyoming  and  New 
Zealand  try  it,  say  for  ten  years."  This  does  not  seem  un- 
reasonable. So  thorough  a  student  of  history  as  Professor 
Smith  knows  that  every  great  reform  and  scientific  development 
has  been  demonstrated  to  be  impossible  by  learned  theorists  who 
opposed  it.  He  knows  the  crushing  effect  that  experience  has 
had  on  ''impossible  theorists."  It  was  clearly  demonstrated  by 
the  scientific  men  of  England  that  a  locomtive  could  not  run 
on  smooth  rails,  but  the  locomotive  ran  and  has  been  running 
ever  since.  It  is  prudent  to  close  an  essay  against  woman  suf- 
frage by  suggesting  that  it  be  tested.  It  is  evident  that  Profes- 
sor Smith's  opinion,  if  not  his  hope,  is  that  the  experiments  he 
suggests  will  prove  woman  suffrage  to  be  a  failure.  But  woman 
suffrage  has  been  tested  for  twenty-five  years  in  Wyoming,  and 
legislators,  judges,  ministers  and  newspaper  writers  unanimously 
pronounce  it  in  all  respects  a  success.  The  present  governor  of 
that  state  forcibly  says,  "Not  one  of  the  predictions  of  its 
opponents  has  been  verified."  Professor  Smith  affirms,  "The 
neighboring  states,  which  must  have  the  clearest  view  of  the 
results,  have  not  been  induced  to  follow  the  example  of  Wy- 
oming." The  ink  with  which  these  words  were  written  was  not 
long  dry  when  Colorado  by  popular  vote  adopted  woman  suf- 
frage by  a  splendid  majonty.  The  test  has  been  made  in  Eng- 
land, in  Canada  and  in  nearly  every  one  of  the  United  States  for 
years.  Women  have  voted  in  school  and  municipal  elections, 
and  have  been  elected  to  public  offices  and  to  representative 
bodies,  with  only  good  results.  There  is  no  logic,  but  only 
prejudice,  to  prove  that  what  is  just  and  wise  in  school  and 
municipal  elections  is  not  wise  and  just  in  parliamentary  elec- 
tions. The  test  suggested  has  been  made  and  woman  suffrage 
is  a  fixed  element  in  human  development.  Women  have  shown 
themselves  capable  of  taking  an  intelligent  part  in  public  affairs ; 
they  have  to  submit  to  laws  on  the  same  conditions  as  men ; 
they  pay  taxes ;  they  are  producers  of  wealth ;  they  are  deeply 


134  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

interested  in  moral  and  philanthropic  work;  they  naturally  repre- 
sent the  home,  and  they  are  responsible  human  beings.  Every 
male  enemy  of  the  home  may  vote.  Mothers  see  saloon  keepers 
and  profligates,  who  aim  to  destrop  their  sons  and  daughters, 
helping  to  make  the  laws,  while  they  themselves  are  unable  tO' 
do  so.  Ignorant  foreigners,  uneducated  men  of  native  birth, 
weak  young  men  without  experience  or  training,  are  allowed 
to  vote  in  all  elections  because  they*  are  males;  but  the  most 
cultured  and  intelligent  women  are  refused  this  right  because 
they  are  women.  Sex  slavery  is  more  indefensible  than  race  or 
class  slavery;  and  the  complete  emancipaticn  of  woman  will  be 
a  grander  triumph  for  justice  and  truth  and  liberty  than  the 
granting  of  freedom  to  any  race  or  class  in  the  history  of  the 
world. 


Arena.  15:  642-53.  March,  1896. 

Bishop  Doane  and  Woman  Suffrage.     Margaret  Noble  Lee. 

The    bishop's    objections    to    woman    suffrage    are    ranged 
under  four  heads,  which   he  says  he  will  not  argue  but  merely, 
assert.     He  asserts : 

1.  Suffrage  is  not  a  right  of  anybody.  It  is  a  privilege  grant- 
ed by  tlie  Constitution  to  such  persons  as  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution   and    founders    of    the    government    deemed    best. 

Looseness  in  the  use  of  terms  gives  this  assertion  more 
explosive  force  than  direction.  To  shift  to  the  misty  realm  of 
metaphysics  and  fence  with  superfine  sophistries  concerning  dis- 
tinctions between  rights  and  privileges  has  been  the  traditional 
tactics  of  equal  suffrage  opponents.  In  this  contest  the  ground 
should  be  the  Constitution,  lighted  by  plain  common  sense,  and 
the  weapons  exact  terms. 

As  to  ^'anybody"  having  a  right  to  suffrage  regardless  of 
place  or  qualifications,  there  is  no  such  question  at  issue.  No- 
woman  suffragist  holds  suffrage  to  be  the  right  of  the  alien,  the 
defective  in  mind,  the  criminal,  or  the  juvenile  classes.  In 
order  to  differ  from  suffragists,  the  bishop's  contention  must 
be  that  suffrage  is  not  the  right  of  any  citizen  of  the  republic ; 
further,  inasmuch  as  woman   suffragists   do  not  claim  the  legaU 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  135 

right  of  suffrage,  he  must  mean  precisely  that  suffrage  is  not 
the  just,  natural,  and  inherent  right  of  any  American  citizen. 

The  Constitution  twice  refers  to  the  "right  of  citizens  of 
the  United  States  to  vote,"  in  one  place  providing  a  penalty 
for  the  infringement  of  that  right,  and  in  another  declaring 
that  it  shall  not  be  denied  because  of  race,  color,  or  previous 
condition  of  servitude.  By  thus  providing  penalties  for  the  in- 
fringement of  the  right  to  vote,  the  framers  of  the  Constitution 
no  more  assumed  to  create  and  bestow  that  right  than  statutes 
for  the  punishment  of  theft  assume  to  create  the  right  of  owner- 
ship. In  both  cases  the  enactment  merely  protects  what  it 
recognizes  to  be  already  in  existence. 

The  fact  is,  the  bishop  is  guilty  of  an  anachronism ;  he  puts 
the  cart  before  the  horse.  The  Constitution  is  the  effect  and 
not  the  cause  of  suffrage.  So  far  were  the  framers  of  that  in- 
strument from  creating  the  "privilege  of  suffrage"  that  had  not 
popular  suft'rage  breathed  into  it  the  breath  of  life,  the  docu- 
ment would  have  remained  absolutely  impotent.  On  the  bishop's 
hypothesis,  whence  came  the  "privilege"  of  the  people  to  vote 
upon  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution — whence  the  right  of  the 
founders  to  frame  a  constitution?  The  bishop's  foundation  for 
suffrage  has  the  same  support  as  the  fabled  Atlas  who  upheld 
the  world  standing  on  the  back  of  an  elephant,  which  stood  upon 
the  back  of  a  tortoise.  In  the  critical  period  of  the  formation 
of  the  Constitution,  the  people  were  in  no  mood  to  accept  as  a 
privilege  from  any  body  of  men  what  they  already  enjoyed  as  a 
right.  They  had  won  self-government  and  political  equality,  and 
the  ballot  was  the  symbol  of  their  freedom.  Suffrage  is  insep- 
arable from  self-government,  and.  the  right  to  it  is  inherent  in 
the  citizens  of  the  republic. 

The  justification  of  a  republic  lies  in  the  nature  of  personality. 
Mulford  in  his  profound  work,  "The  Nation,"  says,  "Personality 
has  its  condition  and  its  realization  only  in  freedom."  While 
the  bishop  finds  in  his  theory  a  reason  for  excluding  woman 
from  participation  in  the  state,  this  philosophy  admits  her.  Shut 
out  from  state  membership,  she  is  arbitrarily  cut  off  from  the 
first  condition  of  self-realization.  Her  personality  with  which 
she  is  divinely  endowed  is  forcibly  restricted  by  human  power. 

The  bishop  asserts : 


136  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

2.  The  old  political  proverb,  "No  taxation  without  representa- 
tion," is  utterly  inapplicable  to  this  question.  It  grew  out  of  the 
tyrannical  action  of  a  government  across  the  sea  in  which  not 
one  of  all  the  people  on  whom  the  tax  was  levied  had  the  faintest 
voice  in  the  framing  of  the  laws  nor  in  the  choice  of  the  gov- 
ernment. .  .  .  But  women  who  are  taxed  are  represented  by 
their  relatives,  by  their  potent  influence,  and  by  man's  sense 
of  justice. 

The  pith  of  this  assertion  is  that  our  famous  tax  creed  does 
not  apply  to  women,  for  the  reason  that  women  who  are  taxed 
are  represented  by  some  or  all  of  the  three  agencies  deemed 
by  the  bishop  equivalent  to  suffrage  for  women.  While  one 
is  tempted  to  inquire  whether  the  bishop  would  be  willing  to 
vest  his  vote  in  his  relatives,  merge  it  in  his  potent  influence, 
or  waive  it,  confiding  to  man's  sense  of  justice,  the  point  may 
be  conceded  that  if  women  who  are  taxed  can  be  proved  to  be. 
represented,  the  old  adage  is  inapplicable. 

The  claim  that  taxed  women  are  represented  involves  the 
admission  of  their  right  to  representation.  It  remains  to  de- 
termine in  what  way  this  is  provided  for  and  secured  to  them. 
Representation  in  any  sense  worth  the  name  has  as  its  essential 
characteristic  the  responsibility,  of  the  representative  to  those  he 
represents,  who  on  election  day  can  bring  him  to  strict  account- 
ability. Clearly  the  representation  accorded  to  women  by  the 
bishop  is  not  of  this  kind ;  it  has  no  legal  sanction ;  it  is  optional 
with  the  representative ;  it  is  a  voluntary  guardianship,  such  as 
the  government  extends  to  Indians  not  taxed.  The  colonists 
were  favored  with  this  mode  of  representation.  They  had 
relatives  ''across  the  sea ;"  they  had  "potent  influence"  in  Parlia- 
ment;  they  had  ''man's  sense  of  justice"  to  rely  upon.  They  re- 
fused to  pay  taxes ;  they  rebelled.  They  knew  that  representation 
without  responsibility  is  mockery. 

Even  if  this  pseudo  representation  were  adequate,  taxed 
women  would  be  least  assured  of  it,  for  the  majority  of  them 
are  husbandless,  and  their  male  relatives  may  have  wives  of 
their  own  to  "represent"  or  may  differ  from  them  in  political 
opinions.  Tax-paying  widows  and  single  women  thus  comprise 
a  class  of  political  pariahs  bearing  the  burdens  of  government 
but  subject  to  the  will  of  the  governing  caste.  In  New  York 
state,  for  example,  on  an  assessed  valuation  of  a  billion  dollars, 
women  pay  in  round  numbers  one  million  dollars  in  taxes, 
more  money  than  the  British  government  annually  exacted  froms 
the  colonists. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  137 

The  theory  of  vicarious  representation  for  women  is  founded 
upon  the  timeworn  notion  that  the  family  is  the  political  unit, 
that  all  women  worth  considering  aire  married,  and  that  the 
married  woman  is  still  a  jemme  couverte,  with  neither  person- 
ality, nor  force  in  the  state.  But  the  family  is  not  the  political 
unit  in  any  sense.  A  political  unit  has  a  single  vote  and  retains 
that  vote.  A  family  may  have  one  vote,  may  have  many,  or  may 
have  none..  The  voting  strength  of  the  family  depends  on  the 
number  of  males  in  it,  and  families  without  male  members  are 
political  wards. 

Aside  from  its  irresponsibility,  its  unequal  distribution  among 
women,  its  legal  non-existence,  political  representation  of  one 
sex  by  another  is  in  its  nature  impossible.  A  vote  is  the  ex- 
pression of  a  will ;  two  wills  make  two  votes,  and  if  but  one 
vote  be  cast,  injustice  is  done  either  to  the  strength  of  two 
wills  or  the  individual  judgment  of  the  one  not  expressed.  If 
the  will  of  the  woman  is  not  expressed,  an  afifront  is  offered  to 
the  individuality  of  one  whom  the  state  has  now  recognized 
as  a  person  and  therefore  entitled  to  expression.  If  the  man 
change  his  vote  at  the  persuasion  of  his  wife,  she  is  represented, 
but  he  is  not,  which  is  as  unjust  as  the  ordinary  situation  to-day, 
in  which  this  evil  is  rare.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  comparatively 
few  men  tax  their  minds  with  delicate  adjustments  and  balanc- 
ings in  order  that  their  vote  may  represent  the  composite  vote 
of  two.  The  average  man  votes  as  he  wishes  and  represents 
his  wife  as  he  wishes  her  represented. 

The  bishop  asserts : 

3.  Equality  does  not  mean  identity  of  duties,  rights,  priv- 
ileges', occupations.  The  sex  differences  are  proof  enough  of  this. 
The  paths  in  which  men  and  women  are  set  to  walk  are  parallel, 
but   not   the   same. 

This  statement  is  absolutely  sound ;  it  is  a  truism.  No 
amount  of  legal  equality  can  do  away  with  natural  differences, 
and  this  holds  between  men  and  men  as  well  as  between  men 
and  women.  The  black  man  has  legal  equality  with  the  white, 
but  his  "duties,  rights,  privileges,  occupations,"  are  not  identical, 
and  no  law  can  make  them  so.  All  that  women  seek  of  the  law 
is  the  equality  granted  to  the  negro,  and  they  seek  this  because 
they  realize  that  they  have  duties  to  the  state  which  are  not 
identical  with  those  of  men.    The  bishop  fears  that  this  equality 


138  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

would  destroy  the  ''equilibrium  of  society,"  and  quotes  the  words 
of  St.  Paul,  *Tf  the  whole  body  were  hearing,  where  were  the 
smelling?"  This  fear  is  groundless.  Like  the  human  body,  the 
body  politic  is  not  "one  member,  but  many" ;  and  in  the  very 
chapter  containing  the  passage  quoted,  St.  Paul  emphasizes  the 
importance  to  the  body  of  all  its  members,  and  condemns  the 
disparaging  by  one  member  of  the  use  or  need  of  another.  The 
trouble  in  the  body  politic  has  been  that  one^member  has  assumed 
to  be  the  whole  body,  and  has  arrogantly  said  to  the  other,  "I 
have  no  need  of  thee." 

The  bishop  is  alarmed  lest  political  equality  may  disturb 
economic  laws.  He  pictures  "overstocked  profess^'ons,  men  and 
woVnen  crowding  each  other  in  and  out  of  occupations,  neglected 
duties,  responsibilities  divided  until  they  are  destroyed  ...  if 
this  unnatural  idea  be  enforced."  This  figment  of  the  imagina- 
tion is  "purely  prophetic  without  the  inspiration  of  prophecy." 
The  bishop  imagines  woman's  industrial  freedom  to  be  dependent 
upon  her  political  emancipation.  As  a  matter  of  fact  woman  is 
to-day  as  free  in  the  choice  of  profession  or  occupation  as  the 
ballot  can  ever  make  her.  The  last  census  reveals  the  presence 
of  women  in  almost  every  remunerative  employment  pursued  in 
the  United  States,  and  yet  we  hear  of  no  consequent  friction 
in  the  shop  nor  misery  in  the  home.  If  economic  equality  does 
not  produce  fratricidal  competition  in  the  labor  world,  how  is 
political  equality  to  bring  this  about?  The  bishop  has  again 
mistaken  effect  for  cause.  The  suffrage  movement  is  a  result 
of  industrial  freedom,  not  its  cause.  And  statisticians  agree  that 
the  entrance  of  women  into  the  business  world,  instead  of  pro- 
ducing the  evils  here  conceived,  has  been  a  beneficent  means 
in  relieving  the  wants  of  homes. 

The  bishop  asserts : 

4.  The  theory  of  increased  wages  for  women  to  be  secured 
by  giving-  votes  to  women  workers,  is  equally  preposterous.  Wag- 
es', like  work,  are  regulated  by  the  unfailing  law  of  supply  and 
demand. 

Women  do  not  expect  to  force  up  wages  by  their  ballots  any 

more  than   men    can   now  do   so,   nor   do   they  think  that   their 

votes  will  ever  work  miracles ;  but  they  do  count  upon  securing 

by  their  ballots  equal  pay  for  equal  work  in  municipal,  state,  or 

national  service,  such  as  a  statute  of  Wyoming  provides  for  that 

state. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  139^ 

So  much  for  the  "fundamental  and  axiomatic  truths"  of  the 
bishop's  argument. 

The  bishop  next  proceeds  with  some  personal  objections  to 
the  enfranchisement  of  women.  In  his  opinion,  some  of  the  bad 
results  would  be  decadence  of  gallantry  in  men,  increase  of  re- 
ligious prejudices  in  political  questions,  multiplication  of  venal 
voters,  and  contention  in  homes.  Loss  of  gallantry  has  been 
the  fevorite  bogy  of  anti-suffragists  to  scare  off  women  from 
this  reform.  It  should  be  known  by  this  time  that  if  the  issue 
involved  a  choice  between  justice  and  gallantry,  suffragists  would 
unanimously  prefer  justice.  However,  they  hold  American  man- 
hood in  too  high  respect  to  believe  its  crowning  characteristic 
of  courtesy  to  women  merely  superficial,  and  they  fail  to  note 
any  diminution  in  the  politeness  of  men  towards  themselves. 
The  women  of  Wyoming  boast  of  the  chivalry  of  their  men, 
which  seems  to  have  withstood  the  shock  of  being  "jostled  at 
the  polls."  Men  may  be  jammed  by  women  in  street  cars» 
crushed  at  receptions,  elbowed  in  markets,  made  to  take  their 
turn  at  box-offices,  but  we  are  told  that  they  will  not  be  jostled 
at  the  polls. 

By  a  curious  process  of  reasoning  the  bishop  discovers 
equally  strong  objections  ^to  the  vote  of  women,  in  their  good- 
ness and  in  their  badness.  In  one  paragraph  he  applauds  their 
native  religious  fervor,  and  in  the  next  is  horrified  at  the  num- 
ber of  corrupt  women  that  would  be  added  to  the  electorate. 
Undoubtedly  when  admitted  to  the  franchise,  women  will  take 
their  religion  with  them  ;  but  if  it  be  deserving  of  the  "infinite 
honor"  with  which  the  bishop  regards  it,  it  should  preserve 
them  against  the  bitter  "religious"  ,  feuds  he  anticipates.  At  its 
worst  it  would  stop  short  of  the  shedding  of  blood,  which  has 
marked  recent  theological  differences  of  male  political  factions, 
in  a  number  of  cities.  And  he  insists  that  what  damage  in- 
judicious good  w^omen  may  fail  to  do  in  government,  wicked 
women  will  compass  by  the  sale  of  their  votes.  If  woman  suf- 
frage were  yet  a  mere  theory,  such  a  prediction  as  this  would 
be  more  pardonable ;  but  wherever  equal  suffrage  prevails,  all 
parties  agree  that  women  as  a  sex  cast  pure  billots.  At  all 
events  the  same  means  adopted  to  deal  with  venality  in  men 
voters  will  be  equally  effective  in  the  case  of  women. 


140  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

In  the  equal-suffrage  home,  according  to  the  bishop,  either 
the  wife  must  echo  her  husband  or  bedlam  will  break  loose,  and 
"in  the  heat  and  violence  of  party  differences  a  new  cause  of 
dissension  and  alienation  be  added  to  the  already  strained  re- 
lations in  many  families."  The  strife  extends  below  stairs, 
kitchen  arraying  itself  against  parlor,  and  for  days  at  election 
time,  home  life  becomes  a  prolonged  political  broil.  This  jere- 
miad might  affect  timid  suffragists,  were  it  not  in  its  nature 
a  conclusion  from  an  "imaginary  premise,-'  which  the  bishop  else- 
where condemns  as  ''illogical  to  the  last  degree."  Under  the 
same  roof  are  now  found  differences  in  religious  l)eliefs,  fre- 
quently between  husband  and  wife,  and  generally  between  mis- 
tress and  maid,  without  destruction  of  domestic  concord ;  and  it 
is  improbable  that  less  vital  differences  will  ruin  homes  otherwise 
happy.  To  the  bishop's  question,  ''Shall  the  cook  leave  her 
kitchen  to  cast  a  vote  which  shall  counterbalance  that  of  her 
mistress?"  the  answer  is  an  emphatic  Yes,  just  as  the  coach- 
man does ;  and  many  mistresses  might  thus  learn  a  needed  lesson 
•  in  political  equality  already  learned  by  their  husbands  through 
the  votes  of  their  employees. 

The  bishop  reaches  the  climax  of  assertion  when  he  says : 

There  is  no  freer  human  being  on  earth  to-day,  thank  God, 
than  the  American  woman.  She  has  all  liberty  that  is  not 
license. 

Acting  upon  this  theory  Miss  Anthony  cast  a  vote  at  one  elec- 
tion with  her  fellow-townsmen,  and  was  fined  one  hundred  dol- 
lars by  a  United  States  judge.  Such  an  assertion  finds  its  an- 
swers in  the  words  of  John  Randolph :  "That  state  in  which 
any  people  is  divested  of  the  power  of  self-government,  and 
regulated  by  laws  to  which  its  assent  is  not  required  and  may 
not  be  given,  is  political  slavery." 

The  political  enfranchisement  of  women  is  grounded  in 
justice,  in  science,  and  in  the  theory  of  the  modern  state.  "Jus- 
tice," declared  Webster,  "is  the  greatest  concern  of  man  on 
earth."  Only  through  its  application  have  the  rights  of  individ- 
uals been  conceived  and  acknowledged.  Only  through  the  posses-  • 
sion-of  rights  is  moral  growth  in  the  state  possible.  This  growth 
is  the  law  of  both  sexes  and  its  development  requires  freedom. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  141 

Men  have  won  this  freedom  from  the  hands  of  tyranny,  and  on 
the  ground  of  justice  women  demand  it  of  them.  On  what 
principle  can  men  withhold  it?  Has  either  sex  the  prerogative 
to  determine  the  rights  of  the  other  sex?  Such  an  assumption 
in  any  field  but  politics  would  meet  with  universal  derision. 
Society  makes  progress  along  various  lines — industry,  culture, 
religion,  and  politics,  the  aim  and  object  of  all  being  the  moral 
elevation  of  the  individual  and  of  the  community.  Each  depart- 
ment of  activity  offers  to  the  individual  an  opportunity  for  use- 
fulness, and  should  be  open  to  every  responsible  person  so  that 
according  to  his  or  her  peculiar  talents  each  may  serve  the  great 
social  end.  Industry,  culture,  and  religion  are  now  open  to 
woman,  but  she  is  still  denied  the  opportunity  to  serve  the  state 
by  the  performance  oi  political  duties.  But  if  man  has  the  right 
to  exclude  her  from  this  field,  he  has  the  same  right  to  limit 
her  in  other  directions.  In  that  case  he  should  prescribe  her 
duties,  in  fact  become  the  keeper  of  her  conscience.  Nature, 
then,  has  made  an  egregious  blunder  in  giving  woman  conscience 
or  will  of  her  own.  Man  either  has  complete  sovereignty  over 
woman,  or  his  assumption  of  it  in  any  province  is  usurpation. 
As  a  matter  of  history,  the  arguments  used  to  bar  woman  from 
state  functions  are  of  a  piece  with  those  formerly  employed  to 
keep  her  from  business,  education,  and  the  professions. 

In  excluding  woman  from  the  suffrage  man  not  only  assumes 
political  sovereignty  over  her  but  moral  superiority  as  well. 
The  exercise  of  the  suffrage  to-day  is  conceded  to  be  a  moral 
obligation.  But  it  is  urged  that  this  obligation  does  not  rest  on 
woman.  Who  is  to  determine  this?  Are  moral  duties  to  be 
assigned  by  one  sex  to  the  other?  or  by  majorities?  The  essential 
feature  of  moral  duty  lies  in  each  individual  determining  his  or 
her  own,  so  long  as  the  rights  of  others  are  not  interfered  with. 
Woman  cannot  be  a  free  moral  agent  while  arbitrarily  restricted 
in  any  sphere  of  moral  action.  And  if  the  proposition  of  Burke 
that  "The  qualifications  for  government  are  virtue  and  wisdom, 
actual  or  presumptive,"  contains  any  truth,  suffrage  is  as  much 
the  woman's  moral  duty  as  the  man's. 

A  stock  objection  of  opponents  to  equal  suffrage  is  that  woman 
has  all  she  can  do  as  mother  of  the  race.  Sociology  demonstrates 
this  objection  to  be  without  scientific  basis.  The  evolution  of  the 


142  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

state  has  been  from  a  military  to  an  industrial  plane.  In  warring 
societies  and  epo'chs,  where  mortality  is  great,  the  birth-rate  has 
been  correspondingly  high,  and  the  maternal  function  emphasized 
to  the  suppression  of  other  capacities  in  woman.  The  same  law 
holds  in  the  animal  kingdom.  Spencer  shows  that  species 
destined  to  heavy  chance  mortality  meet  the  emergency  by  enor- 
mous reproduction.  With  increased  life  chances  offspring  are 
less  numerous.  Accordingly  in  industrial  societies  the  birth-rate 
decreases,  and  quality  replaces  quantity  as  the  criterion  of  the 
family. 

The  development  of  society  from  the  military  to  the  industrial 
stage  has  transformed  the  life  of  woman  no  less  than  of  man. 
Smaller  families,  the  general  employment  of  servants,  and  the 
introduction  into  the  household  of  labor-saving  inventions  and 
manufactured  products  now  afford  women  time  for  new  activi- 
ties. Some  of  the  sex  are  devoting  their  leisure  to  "pink  teas" 
and  other  "social  functions" ;  many,  however,  find  in  it  an  op- 
portunity for  larger  usefulness,  to  themselves,  to  their  families, 
and  to  society. 

Enlarged  contact  with  the  world  has  forced  upon  the  atten- 
tion of  some  of  these  women  social  problems  which  centuries 
of  Christian  civilization  guided  and  controlled  by  man  have  not 
solved.  These  problems  in  great  part  affect  the  family  and  the 
home,  but  women  in  their  present  status  are  powerless  to  cope 
with  them.  They  have  begun  to  realize  that  it  is  vain  to  expect 
virtuous  and  happy  homes  in  great  numbers  while  pernicious 
influences  are  so  unrestrictedly  at  work  in  the  state,  counter- 
balancing more  or  less  the  effects  of  early  training  and  following 
their  new  opportunity  they  regard  it  as  their  duty  to  help  guard 
the  course  as  well  as  the  sources  of  life's  stream.  To  do  this 
they  must  extend  their  labors  into  the  larger  domain  of  the  state. 

It  is  useless  to  tell  them  to  go  back  home  and  take  care  of 
their  children.  They  have  come  outside  for  this  very  purpose. 
Their  children  are  in  state  schools;  they  have  an  interest  in  the 
composition  of  the  school  board,  in  the  character  of  the  teachers, 
in  the  housing  of  pupils,  and  in  all  that  constitutes  our  public- 
school  system.  Their  children  are  necessarily  on  the  streets  and 
in  public  places ;  they  must  then  resist  and  combat  every  vice 
which   spreads  its  snare   for  the  innocent.     Indeed,  to  do  their 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  -  143 

full  duty  as  mothers  of  the  race  they  must  extend  their  power 
into  the  state,  to  make  it  as  tolerable  a  place  as  possible  for 
their  children.  No  apprehension  need  be  felt  that  woman  will 
then  neglect  her  home  duties.  This  was  the  agonized  fear  when 
she  sought  an  education.  In  that  crisis  the  great  Dr.  Johnson 
declared  that  woman  "was  better  attending  to  her  toilet  than 
using  the  pen."  The  only  sphere  hitherto  freely  conceded  to. 
woman  has  been  religion  with  the  Book  of  Job  underscored.  , 

The  theory  of  the  modern  state  alone  furnishes  an  adequate 
reason  for  the  enfranchisement  of  women.  The  state  now 
assumes  many  functions  once  performed  by  the  family  and  other 
private  agencies,  and  has  greatly  enlarged  its  sphere  for  the 
promotion  of  the  general  welfare.  It  educates  children,  cares 
for  the  sick  and  the  defective,  enforces  sanitary  regulations,  re- 
forms rather  than  punishes  its  criminals,  provides  factory  and 
tenement  inspection,  and  undertakes  many  other  services  for  the 
common  good.  The  state  as  a  police  force  existing  only  for  the 
bodily  protection  of  its  citizens  has  become  a  social  organism 
fostering  the  mental  and  moral  as  well  as  the  physical  well-being 
of  its  members.  In  these  new  functions  of  the  state,  women  are 
fitted  by  nature  and  experience  to  cooperate  with  men.  Politics, 
it  is  true,  are  not  at  present  inviting;  but  general  experience  has 
been  that  with  the  advent  of  woman  in  the  shop,  the  office,  the 
counting-room,  the  college,  and  wherever  she  has  gone,  the  moral . 
atmosphere  has  improved.  Her  mere  presence  at  political  meet- 
ings, to  which  she  is  now  cordially  invited,  has  raised  the  tone  of 
campaign  addresses.  It  is  hardly  probable  that  a  different  result 
would  follow  her  presence  at  the  polls. 

What  does  the  ballot  to-day  signify?  Is  a  vote  an  expression 
of  so  much  physical  power,  and  does  a  majority  indicate  a  pre- 
ponderance of  brute  force?  If  this  be  true  "educational  cam- 
paigns" and  appeals  to  reason  are  senseless.  Time  was  when 
voting  was  done  by  the  clash  of  the  spear  upon  the  shield.  The 
ballot  originally  was  a  substitute  for  this  demonstration,  but 
now  the  state  does  not  limit  suffrage  to  warriors,  and  qualifica- 
tions of  voters  are  never  physical.  The  ballot  represents  mere 
opinion,  and  law  finds  its  validity  in  a  majority  of  opinions. 
The  basis  of  the  modern  state  is  intelligence.  Why  then  should 
the  state  ignore  the  intelligence  of  half  its  citizens?     The  econ- 


144  .    SELECTED  ARTICLES 

omy  of  human  society  demands  that  every  factor  should  be  used 
to  the  extent  of  its  capacity. 

Why  do  women  stake  so  much  on  the  ballot?  Because  it  is 
at  the  root  of  every  tax,  every  public  institution,  every  choice  of 
officials,  every  law ;  it  frees  government  from  arbitrary  clement ; 
removes  discontent,  and  affords  to  all  full  and  equal  political 
power.  It  is  the  door  to  self-realization.  Its  possession  would 
make  women  responsible  factors  in  the  state ;  without  it  they 
are  non-entities.  Certain  anti-suffragists  protest  that  woman  is 
morally  superior  to  man,  that  she  should  exert  an  influence  on 
the  state,  but  that  man  should  be  the  bearer  of  it.  If  this  in- 
fluence is  desirable,  why  not  introduce  it  directly  into  the  state 
rather  than  filter  it  through  a  less  moral  medium?  Women, 
however,  do  not  claim  the  ballot  on  the  ground  of  ''moral 
superiority."  The  state  does  not  need  them  more  than  tliey  need 
the  ballot. 


Arena.   i6:  570-80.  September,  1896. 

Right  of  Woman  to  the  Ballot.     Charles   H.  Chapman. 

I  have  read  Mr.  Rossiter  Johnston's  pamphlet  entitled  "The 
blank-cartridge  ballot,"  and  am  very  much  pleased  with  it.  It 
is  a  very  clever  piece  of  work.  It  is  well  written,  logically  con- 
'  structed,  and  of  excellent  diction.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  best  present 
tation  of  the  argument  that  I  have  ever  read.  It  lacks  but  two 
things  to  make  it  irrefutable, — a  basis  of  truth  and  a  confirma- 
tion by  facts. 

The  gist  of  Mr.  Johnson's  argument,  boiled  down  and  stripped 
of  all  superfluous  emendations,  is,  "Woman  cannot  vote  because 
she  cannot  fight."  In  other  words,  the  elective  franchise  is  de- 
pendent on  the  capacity  for  bearing  arms,  and  woman  cannot 
bear  arms.  Accept  this  as  an  axiom  and  Mr.  Johnson's  de- 
ductions follow  without  further  discussion.  But  the  age  of  blind 
acceptance  of  beliefs  has  passed.  We  no  longer  blindly  accept 
the  authority  of  powers  and  maintain  without  question  that  the 
sun  moves  round  the  earth  or  any  other  so-called  axiom  equally 
reasonable  which  they  feel  called  upon  to  advance. 

"Woman  cannot  fight."     I  seldom  open  a  newspaper  without 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  145 

finding  some  instance  of  a  woman  making  a  pretty  good  fight 
against  a  burglar,  highwayman,  or  other  ruffian.  Without  com- 
menting on  Jeanne  d'Arc,  the  Countess  de  Montfort,  and  other 
memories  of  the  dark  ages,  we  can  refer  Mr.  Johnson  to  the 
annals  of  our  border  wars  where  he  will  find  many  an  instance 
where  woman  has  fought, — fought  like  the  savage  she-wolf  in 
her  lair,  for  the  safety  of  her  children,  husband,  and  home. 

What  is  the  most  essential  qualification  for  a  fighter,  a  com- 
batant who  stands  out  in  the  face  of  the  enemy  and  throws 
down  his  gage  of  battle  with  the  resolution  to  win  the  cause  or 
die? 

Is  it  strength?  Is  it  physical  endurance?  Is  it  steadiness  of 
nerve?  All  these  are  well  enough  in  their  way  and  valuable 
imder  circumstances,  but  the  one  indispensable  element  is  cour- 
age.    Without  that,  all  other  advantages  are  worse  than  useless. 

Yon  see  the  illustration  of  this  on  the  college  foot-ball  field 
to-day.  Watch  the  practice  of  the  team  against  the  scrub.  Who 
is  that  little  undersized  runt  of  a  boy  running  with  the  ball  in 
the  heart  of  every  wedge  and  scrimmage,  tackling  and  throwing 
those  big  fellows  as  the  bulldog  throws  the  bull?  What  is  he 
doing  on  the  team?  Why  is  not  one  of  those  men  on  the  scrub, 
or  one  of  these  dozen  big  men  among  the  bystanders,  big, 
straight-standing,  strong-looking,  finely  developed  men,  playing 
in  the  place  of  that  little  caricature  of  humanity?  You  put  the 
question  to  the  captain  or  coach  and  he  replies,  "Yes,  so  and  so 
is  small,  but  he  has  the  grit  and  can  play,  while  that  big,  hand- 
some man  is  as  powerful  as  he  looks  and  a  wonder  in  the 
gymnasium,  but  he  hasn't  got  the  'sand'  to  play  foot-ball.'* 

'Where  the  spirit  is  lacking,  the  flesh  is  weak."  Woman 
possesses  courage  in  the  same  ratio  as  man,  no  more  and  no  less. 
Daughters  inherit  the  gift  from  their  fathers,  and  sons  from 
their  mothers.  It  is  as  free  to  both  sexes  as  honesty,  intelligence, 
memory,  or  any  other  virtue  of  mankind.  Many  women  are 
skilled  in  the  use  of  firearms  and  other  weapons  and  use  them 
well  enough  to  defeat  the  average  man  in  any  contest  of  ex- 
pertness. 

The  statement  that  woman  cannot  fight  or  bear  arms  is  proven 
false  by  the  experience  of  centuries.  She  can  and  will  do  so 
most  desperately  if  forced  to  do  so,  as  the  female  of  any  animal 


146  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

species  will  do  in  defence  of  her  offspring.  The  lioness,  tigress, 
and  she-wolf  are  less  aggressive  than  their  consorts,  but  the 
hunter  knows  them  for  much  more  dangerous  foes  when  they 
turn  to  bay  in  defence  of  their  litters.  The  male  deer  flees  at 
the  mere  scent  of  the  prowling  wolf,  but  the  doe  braves  the  com- 
bat in  defence  of  her  fawn ;  and  even  the  timid  hare  will  attack 
the  marauding  weasel  to  protect  her  progeny. 

The  statement  that  woman  cannot  fight  or  bear  arms  is  a 
perversion  of  the  truth ;  but  when  we  say,  "Woman,  as  a  rule, 
does  not  fight ;  she  leaves  to  man,  more  aggressive  by  nature  and 
better  qualified  physically,  the  bearing  of  the  brunt  of  actual 
conflict,"  we  state  fairly  the  facts  of  the  case. 

"But,"  we  hear  our  opponent  argue,  "war  is  a  serious  matter. 
Nations  in  warfare  call  upon  every  resource  they  can  command. 
Why  is  it  that  woman,  if  she  can  fight  as  well  as  you  claim  to 
show,  has  never  been  called  on  to  bear  the  brunt  of  battle?" 

The  answer  is  clear.  The  fighting  force  of  a  people  is  always 
in  small  proportion  to  the  population.  Every  person  in  the  field 
requires  five  or  six  at  home  to  keep  him  there  in  fighting  trim. 
The  soldier  does  not  live  on  air.  He  requires  to  be  fed,  to  be 
clothed,  to  be  nursed  in  sickness.  His  children  and  family  and 
private  affairs  need  attention  while  he  is  absent  on  the  tented 
field.  "An  army  travels  on  its  stomach,''  is  an  axiom  most 
thoroughly  proven  to  every  soldier  who  has  ever  had  to  do 
arduous  duty  on  short  rations. 

Now  this  is  the  part  of  war  that  has  devolved  on  woman 
from  time  immemorial,  to  feed  and  clothe  the  armies,  to  nurse 
the  sick  and  wounded,  and  in  addition  to  take  the  burden  of  the 
absent  and  perform  the  task  of  caring  for  and  feeding  the  chil- 
dren and  the  aged  and  infirm,  a  task  of  double  labor  in  the  ab- 
sence of  her  helpmate ;  and  of  the  two  the  stay-at-homes  have 
at  times  the  harder,  if  the  less  dangerous  part. 

When  Mr.  Johnson  argues  that  the  franchise  is  dependent  on 
the  power  and  the  will  to  handle  the  musket,  to  pay  what  Mr. 
Johnson  calls  the  service  tax,  which  tax  he  claims  is  levied  on 
men  alone,  and  which,  if  I  am  rightly  informed,  the  government 
pays  for  in  monthly  wages  and  prospective  pensions,  the  money 
for  which  is  collected  by  taxes  levied  on  men  and  women  alike, 
it  seems  to  me,  considering  that  women  have  been  doing  their 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  147 

share  at  home  and  bearing  the  burdens  of  men  in  addition  to 
their  own,  besides  working  extensively  in  the  hospitals  and  com- 
missary departments,  that  the  service  tax  is  pretty  equally  dis- 
tributed between  the  sexes  after  all.  ''Men  must  work  and 
women  must  weep,"  writes  Kingsley ;  but  when  men  must  fight, 
women  must  both  work  and  weep.  Yet  "women  cannot  vote 
because  they  cannot  fight." 

The  lame,  halt,  and  blind  and  also  the  aged  men  vote,  but 
that  is  "because  they  are  so  few  that  it  has  not  been  thought 
worth  while  to  bar  them  out,"  to  quote  Mr.  Johnson.  I  fail 
to  recall  any  passage  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  various  state  constitutions, 
or  the  writings  or  speeches  of  our  most  prominent  statesmen, 
that  would  lead  to  the  above  inference.  I  have  always  had  the 
impression  that  the  ballot  was  the  birthright  of  every  male 
citizen  of  legal  age,  not  wrung  from  the  government  by  force, 
but  freely  given  by  his  fellow-citizens  to  be  used  for  his  and 
their  benefit;  and  I  have  always  held  it  to  be  the  glory  of  the 
nation  that  this  right  was  inalienable  to  the  citizen  be  he  weak 
or  strong,  great  or  small,  and  forfeitable  only  by  crime. 

We  fought  a  tyrannical  power,  not  for  the  right  itself,  but 
for  the  power  to  give  the  right.  We  gained  that  power,  and 
we,  the  sovereign  people,  gave  freely  the  right  of  franchise  to 
every  male  citizen  of  the  United  States.  Equally  so  can  we  give 
that  right  to   every  female  citizen. 

But  let  us  see  what  proportion  of  these  non-combatants  Mr. 
Johnson  thinks  so  small  as  to  be  not  worth  while  barring  out. 
The  men  actually  under  arms  on  both  sides  in  the  "late  un- 
pleasantness" numbered  about  three  millions.  The  total  vote  cast 
for   president   in    i860   was   4,680,193. 

Deduct  from  the  muster  of  the  troops  the  members  of  the 
regular  army  and  navy  who,  although  fighters,  had  no  vote,  and 
the  prospective  citizens  not  yet  naturalized,  many  of  whom 
sharned  native  citizens  by  the  eagerness  with  which  they  took 
up  arms  for  their  adopted  country,  and  add  to  the  voting  total 
the  voters  who  shunned  the  polls  (a  large  class  as  we  know 
from  experience),  and  we  can  safely  say  that  forty  per  cent,  of 
those  qualified  by  law  to  vote  were  incapacitated  or  wilfully  re- 
fused to  bear  arms  to  enforce  the  ballot  that  they  cast.    This  is 


148  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  proportion  that  Mr.  Johnson  considers  not  worth  while 
barring  out.  ^'But,"  I  think  I  hear  the  objection,  *'these  men 
who  held  back  from  supporting  their  ballots  with  a  'pinch  of 
powder  and  a  pellet  of  lead'  were  not  needed  at  the  front.  If  they 
had  been  they  would  have  done  their  duty  in  the  ranks."  I 
will  not  refer  to  the  draft  riots  and  other  disturbances  which 
followed  the  levies  of  1863,  showing  in  what  a  willing  spirit 
the  stay-at-home  voters  answered  their  country's  call,  but  will 
pass  on  to.  more  pertinent  matters. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Confederate  cause  needed  every 
available  man  at  the  front.  There  is  no  doubt  that  it  used 
every  expedient  to  get  them  there.  Men  were  forced  into  the 
ranks  under  penalty  of  death  on  refusal,  driven  in  like  cattle  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet,  hunted  down  and  dragged  out  of  their 
hiding-places  in  holes  and  caves,  and  given  the  choice  of  instant 
death  or  enlistment.  The  country  was  drained  of  every  man 
that  could  carry  a  musket.  Boys  not  yet  through  school  and 
grandfathers  stiff  with  age  marched  side  by  side,  and  in  days 
of  travel  no  able  bodied  white  man  could  be  found  who  was  not 
a  soldier. 

The  enlisted  strength  of  the  Confederate  troops  was  about 
600,000.  The  vote  for  president  in  i860  in  ten  of  the  secession 
states  was  857,704.  South  Carolina's  vote  was  cast  by  her  legis- 
lature and  does  not  figure  in  the  total,  but  her  voting  strength, 
calculated  on  the  basis  of  her  white  population,  was  about  45,ooD, 
making  the  total  southern  vo.te  about  900,000  in  round  numbers. 
Here  are  300,000  blank-cartridge  ballots,  about  one  third  of  the 
whole,  which  Mr.  Johnson  considers  not  worth  while  barring 
out.  "But,"  to  quote  again,  "such  a  man  [/.  .e.,  non-combatant] 
might  still  be  very  powerful  in  creating  a  riot  or  suppressing 
one,  in  overthrowing  a  government  or  in  sustaining  one  in  an 
emergency,  and  this  fact  has  to  be  recognized." 

Women  have  had  a  chance  of  creating  riots  and  of  over- 
throwing governments  in  the  French  Revolution  and  elsewhere, 
and  also  in  suppressing  sedition  and  sustaining  governments  at 
various  times  and  in  various  capacities,  and  have  proved  not 
wanting  in  power  and  wisdom,  and  these  facts  have  to  be 
recognized.  And  while  we  are  supposing  imaginary  states  of 
affairs   let   us   suppose   that   woman   put   into   use   some   of   that 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  149 

power  for  organization  that  she  possesses  in  common  with  man, 
and  organized  a  strike  against  one  of  these  wars  in  whose  mak- 
ing and  conduct  she  had  no  voice. 

Suppose  the  women  of  the  country  said :  ''We  will  have  none 
of  this  war.  We  will  not  feed  and  clothe  the  soldiers.  We 
will  not  nurse  the  wounded.  We  will  not  care  for  our  hus- 
band's, father's,  brother's,  family  and  manage  his  business  affairs 
while  he  is  in  the  field  trying  to  shoot  some  one  else's  husband, 
father,  or  brother."  That  war  would  come  to  a  stop  so  sud- 
denly that  not  even  a  blank-cartridge  ballot  would  be  needed  to 
give  it  its  final  quietus. 

Gen.  Lee  would  not  have  surrendered  in  another  four  years 
if  Grant's  troops  had  amused  themselves  firing  blank  cartridges 
at  him,  but  he  would  have  yielded  in  less  than  six  months  if  he 
had  lacked  the  toil,  support,  and  sympathy  of  the  women  of  the 
South. 

"When  gunpowder  came  into  use,"  says  Mr,  Johnson,  ''suf- 
frage began  to  be  popularized,  and  it  has  been  widening  ever 
since,  but  it  only  follows  the  development  of  the  rifle."  This 
sentence  is  a  little  obscure.  It  is,  of  course,  a  well-known  fact 
that  suffrage  has  been  popularized  and  widened  in  common  with 
improvements  in  firearms,  ordnance,  and  other  military  and 
naval  appliances,  as  it  has  with  the  increased  knowledge  and 
use  of  printing,  machinery,  chemistry,  medicine,  and  other  mod- 
ern sciences  and  arts.  We  take  it,  however,  that  Mr.  Johnson 
means  to  infer  that  the  spread  of  the  ballot  has  been  due  to  the 
possession  of  arms  and  the  knowledge  of  using  them;  that  it  is 
a  thing  wrested  from  authority  by  individual  force ;  that  it  is  not 
a  gift  dictated  by  justice  and  right,  but  a  concession  actuated  by 
fear  and  intimidation.  Let  us  see  how  far  this  idea  is  borne 
out  by  facts. 

Women,  Mr.  Johnson  claims,  cannot  bear  arms  or  fight,  and 
women,  we  are  glad  to  admit,  do  not  usually  enforce  their  de- 
mands by  means  of  warfare  and  violence.  In  Great  Britain 
Sweden,  Norway,  Russia,  Finland,  Austria-Hungary,  Croatia, 
Dalmatia,  Italy,  the  Madras  and  Bombay  Presidencies  of  India, 
Cape  Colony,  New  Zealand,  Iceland,  Dominion  of  Canada,  and 
Northwest  territories,  and  twenty-eight  states' and  territories  of 
the  United  States,  women  enjoy  partial  or  entire  suffrage.     In 


150  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

every  case  was  it  given  tliem  in  recognition  of  their  right  to 
have  some  voice  in  making  the  laws  and  in  choosing  the  officers 
to  enforce  the  laws  by  which  they  are  governed,  in  no  instance 
being  granted  through  fear  of  force. 

Take  for  example  the  state  of  Wyoming,  a  government 
located  in  what  writers  delight  to  call  the  "wild  and  woolly 
West,"  where  men  are  shot  for  breakfast,  and  "bad  men"  keep 
private  graveyards  for  their  victims ;  where  every  man's  life  is 
supposed  to  depend  on  his  skill  in  using  the  loaded  revolver  he 
carries  at  his  side ;  an  ideal  community,  evidently,  for  Mr.  John- 
son's fighting  voter,  the  man  who  enforces  his  ballot  with  his 
musket.  Wyoming  territory  gave  woman  equal  suffrage  in 
1870.  After  twenty  years  of  trial,  Wyoming  thought  so  well 
of  woman's  ''blank-cartridge"  ballot  that  in  1889  the  convention 
by  a  unanimous  vote  inserted  an  equal-suffrage  provision  in  the 
state  constitution,  which  constitution  was  ratified  by  the  voters 
by  a  three-fourths  majority. 

Mr.  Johnson  claims  that  in  Great  Britain  every  enlargement 
of  the  franchise  was  wrung  from  the  governing  class  by  fear 
and  intimidation.  Surely  this  is  an  ungenerous  criticism  of  the 
great  Liberal  party  and  its  leaders,  W.  E.  Gladstone,  John  Bright, 
and  others,  who  have  spent  years  trying  to  relieve,  elevate,  and 
enlighten  the  weak  and  downtrodden,  and  have  time  and  again 
come  to  the  rescue  of  those  so  ignorant  and  defenceless  that 
their  only  appeal  was,  "W^e  suffer ;  help  us ;"  who  have  striven 
for  years  to  give  to  Ireland  the  self-government  she  desires  but 
cannot  obtain,  and  whose  work  would  ere  this  have  been  crowned 
with  success  but  for  the  bigotry  and  opposition  of  certain  fac- 
tions of  the  Irish  themselves. 

But  is  it  not  time  to  do  away  with  this  worn-out  fallacy, 
this  barbarous  conception  of  universal  suffrage  and  represent- 
ative government  as  being  dependent  only  on  the  physical  force 
that  lies  behind  the  ballot  box,  and  not  in  the  intelligence,  jus- 
tice, and  respect  for  the  self-made  law  of  an  enlightened  people? 

The  ballot  is  the  gift  of  the  strong  to  the  weak,  the  generous 
recognition  by  the  strong  that  the  w^eak  have  rights  which  he  is 
bound  by  justice  and  honor  to  respect  whether  he  is  able  to 
ignore  them  by  his  superior  strength  or  not.  The  powerful  says 
to  humbleness,  "I  know  that  you  possess   equal   interest  in   life 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  151 

with  me  although  your  strength  does  not  permit  you  to  manifest 
it;  I  give  you  the  right  to  an  equal  voice  in  this  matter  with 
myself,  and,  if  necessary,  I  will  add  my  strength  to  yours  to 
maintain  it."  Thus,  to  use  Mr.  Johnson's  own  simile,  if  Mr. 
Johnson  was  in  danger  of  being  dispossessed  of  his  franchise, 
Mr.  Astor,  the  plutocrat,  and  the  humble  servitor  would  both 
fly  to  Mr.  Johnson's  aid,  and  if  Mr.  x^stor  were  in  like  danger, 
Mr.  Johnson  and  his  sweeper  would  be  on  hand,  even  if  Mr. 
Astor  were  too  old,  sick,  or  crippled  to  lift  a  finger  in  his  own 
behalf.  So  also  would  they  if  Mrs.  Astor's  property  were 
assailed,  and  why  should  they  not  do  so  if  Mrs.  Astor's  franchise 
were  assailed? 

Free  and  popular  government  is  the  best  form  of  govern- 
ment for  an  intelligent  and  enlightened  people,  and  it  is  only 
safe  for  such.  Any  attempt  to  introduce  it  into  barbarous  and 
uncivilized  nations  has  resulted  and  always  will  result  in  failure. 
The  ballot  must  be  guided  by  intelligence  to  be  beneficial.  In 
the  hands  of  ignorance  it  becomes  something  worse  than  Mr. 
Johnson's  dreaded  blank  cartridges.  It  becomes  the  instrument 
of  the  noisy  demagogue,  of  the  wily  and  unscrupulous  politician, 
to  be  used  for  furtherment  of  his  own  selfish  gain  and  the  detri- 
ment of  the  public  good ;  the  weapon  of  the  political  machine  and 
the  bane  of  good  government.  The  greatest  danger  to  the  gov- 
ernment is  not  in  the  admission  as  voters  of  intelligent  and  edu- 
cated women  who  could  use  the  ballot  wisely  and  well,  but  the 
failure  to  bar  the  franchise  from  ignorant  and  unprincipled  for- 
eigners who  use  their  votes  at  the  bidding  of  an  unscrupulous 
*'boss"  to  support  open  fraud  and  corruption  in  public  office. 

Mr.  Johnson  cites  the  case  of  the  negro  voter  as  an  example 
of  the  uselessness  of  the  blank-cartridge  ballot.  He  claims  their 
failure  as  voters  is  "not  from  lack  of  intelligence,  for  many  of 
them  are  well  educated  and  are  quite  as  intelHgent  as  some  of 
the  whites."  (Query:  How  many,  what  per  cent,  of  the  whole? 
Also  how  many  are  as  intelligent  as  the  average  of  the  whites?) 
Yet  in  the  same  paragraph  he  prophesies,  *Tf  the  time  should 
ever  come  when  every  colored  man  owns  a  Winchester  rifle, 
and  when  the  race  has  learned  how  to  organize,  then  the  colored 
vote  will  be  cast  and  will  be  counted."  Now  I  will  prophesy 
that  when  the  colored  race  has  acquired  sufficient  intelligence  as 


152  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

a-  whole  to  organize  and  incidentally  to  make  a  wise  and  proper 
use  of  the  franchise  already  granted,  then  the  colored  vote  will 
be  cast  and  counted  without  reference  to  the  Winchester  rifle 
either  as  a  present  fact  or  possible  contingency. 

Mr.  Johnson  inquires  with  anxiety  what  would  happen  if 
eight  hundred  thousand  men  were  to  undertake  to  stand  against 
six  hundred  thousand  men  and  a  million  women.  As  George 
Stephenson  replied  to  an  eminent  personage  inquiring  as  to  the 
result  of  a  collision  between  his  newly  constructed  engine  and 
a  female  o^  the  bovine  species,  that  "it  would  be  varra  bad  for 
the  coo,"  so  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  in  the  above  very  ex- 
traordinary contingency  the  eight  hundred  thousand  would  find 
themselves  in  a  very  uncomfortable  position  without  delay. 
"You  are  to  bid  any  man  stand,"  quotes  Mr.  Johnson.  "How 
if  he  will  not  stand?"  In  these  times  we  usually  arrest  such  a 
man  and  imprison  or  fine  him  for  breach  of  the  peace.  If  we  can- 
not do  so,  I  agree  that  we  must  decline  into  a  state  of  anarchy, 
not  because  we  have  asked  intelligent  women  to  share  with  us 
the  difficulties  and  responsibilities  of  self-government,  but  be- 
cause we  have  so  degenerated  from  enlightenment  toward  savag- 
ery as  to  refuse  to  recognize  and  enforce  the  laws  and  obliga- 
tions imposed  by  our  own  will  and  actions. 

Mr.  Johnson  seems  greatly  concerned  at  the  danger  to  the 
government  at  every  closely  contested  election.  He  says,  "When 
we  elect  a  president  by  a  popular  majority  of  less  than  one 
per  cent,  of  all  the  votes  there  must  always  be  a  temptation 
to  the  defeated  party  to  try  the  experiment  of  not  submitting, 
and  we  have  seen  what  this  led  to  in  one  noticeable  instance" 
(meaning,  we  presume,  the  great  Rebellion).  We  can  assure 
Mr.  Johnson  that  the  situation  he  dreads  has  already  occurred 
in  our  history  in  an  even  more  aggravated  form  without  the 
condition  that  he  predicts  arising.  For  example,  in  1824  Andrew 
Jackson  had  a  clear  plurality  of  the  popular  vote  over  John 
Quincy  Adams,  but  the  House  of  Representatives  elected  Mr. 
Adams  and  the  people  acquiesced  in  their  choice  without  an  at- 
tempted appeal  to  arms.  In  1876  the  country  was  almost  evenly 
divided  over  the  rivals,  Mr.  Hayes  and  Mr.  Tilden,  so  evenly 
divided  that  the  question  was  settled  by  Congress  by  the  smallest 
possible  majority.     Yet  no  talk  of  armed  resistance  stirred  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  153 

country,  and  either  candidate,  placing  his  good  sense  and  good 
citizenship  before  his  personal  ambition,  would  have  refused 
with  scorn  and  horror  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  his  supporters 
to  gain  him  the  office  by  force. 

In  1888  Mr.  Cleveland  had  a  clear  popular  majority  in  his 
favor,  but  the  election  of  Mr.  Harrison  was  accepted  as  an  ac- 
complished fact,  without  a  thought  of  protest.  Other  examples 
could  be  given,  but  these  suffice  to  show  the  non-existence  of  the 
idea  that  even  the  majority  would  attempt  to  break  by  force  the 
laws  that  they  themselves  have  made.  As  for  the  great  Rebellion, 
Mr.  Johnson  is  too  well  informed  to  claim  that  the  divided  vote 
of  the  election  of  i860  was  the  cause  of  that  civil  struggle.  The 
war  was  the  inevitable  arrival  of  that  crisis  long  foreseen  and 
foretold  by  Henry  Clay,  Daniel  Webster,  and  other  statesmen, 
the  inexorable  result  of  the  axiom  that  freedom  and  slavery  can- 
not be  co-existent  in  the  same  nation.  The  slaveholders,  driven 
from  their  last  stronghold,  and  condemned  by  the  voice  of  the 
people,  appealed  to  the  foundation  of  their  system,  brute  force, 
and  once  again  civilization  triumphed  over  barbarism. 

History  teaches  us  that  governments  based  on  military 
strength  are  not  stable,  for  they  are  constantly  at  the  mercy  of 
any  stronger  force  and  they  contain  in  themselves  elements  of 
discord  that  weaken  the  nation  more  than  the  trained  warriors 
strengthen  it.  The  very  arms  that  it  most  relies  on  for  pro- 
tection may  at  any  moment  turn  against  it.  Such  governments 
are  neither  popular,  representative,  nor  democratic.  Their 
very  foundation  precludes  it.  Government  by  force  can  only 
exist  by  concentration  of  force.  Concentration  of  force  means 
the  surrender  of  all  authority  into  the  smallest  possible  number 
of  hands,  in  other  words  a  despotism,  hereditary  or  elective, 
king  or  dictator. 

The  Romans  maintained  a  representative  government  in  a 
wise  and  stable  form  as  long  as  they  retained  the  principle  of 
uniform  representation,  but  when  they  endeavored  to  govern 
conquered  territory  by  force,  without  listening  to  the  voice  of 
the  governed,  the  government,  one  standing  alone  without  rival 
in  the  world,  rapidly  degenerated  through  various  forms  of  oli- 
garchy and  dictatorship  to  the  empire,  which  was  riven  apart 
by  its    own    internal    dissensions    and   the    utter   apathy   of    the 


J 54  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

people  toward  a  government  in  which  they  had  no  representa- 
tion. 

The  power  to  bear  arms  is  not  the  qualilication  to  wield  the 
ballot  even  among  savage  tribes.  In  the  lodges  of  the  Indians, 
it  is  not  the  mighty  hunter,  the  bold  and  dashing  young  warrior, 
to  whom  it  is  given  to  decide  the  policy  and  destiny  of  the 
tribe.  It  is  the  ancient  chieftan,  hoary  with  years  and  wisdom, 
whose  tottering  steps  will  never  more  follow  on  the  trail, 
whose  dim  eyes  can  no  more  sight  the  rifle,  whose  withered  arm 
is  too  weak  for  the  mighty  war-club, — he  it  is  who  enters  the 
council  lodge,  and  gives  his  voice  and  his  vote  to  the  welfare  of 
the  people,  and  the  young  men  hearken  to  his  counsels  and  obey 
his  behests  with  the  reverence  that  strength  ever  pays  to  wisdom 
and  experience. 

We  need  the  vote  of  woman  in  our  public  responsibilities  as 
we  need  her  voice  and  assistance  in  our  homes  and  daily  tasks. 
Government  needs  many  hands  and  many  voices  directed  by 
intelligence.  Too  many  such  we  cannot  have,  and  we  are  foolish 
to  neglect  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  intelligence  and  wisdom 
that  knock  for  admittance. 

The  right  of  women  to  vote  is  contained  in  the  principles  of 
republican  government,  "Government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people, .  for  the  people."  It  is  as  self-evident  as  her  right  to 
exist,  her  right  to  a  half  interest  in  the  control  of  her  children, 
her  right  to  a  share  of  her  husband's  property,  or  her  right  to 
a  share  of  her  parents'  estate. 

Not  one  but  many  politicians  and  statesmen  have  admitted  that 
when  women  unanimously,  or  in  a  large  majority,  demanded 
the  ballot,  it  would  be  given  them;  no  power,  they  say,  can 
withhold  it.  It  is  because  so  many  are  indifferent  to  their  right 
and  privilege,  and  a  few,  imitating  the  dog  in  the  manger,  with 
the  statement,  "We  don't  want  to  vote,  so  you  sha'n't,"  bitterly 
oppose  it,  that  universal  suffrage  has  not  yet  been  attained. 

Where  then  is  the  dominating  idea  of  the  man  and  the  musket 
behind  the  ballot?  Evidently  it  has  no  place  in  the  experience 
of  men  whose  business  is  politics  and  government.  Given  uni- 
versal suffrage,  in  the  event  of  war  woman  would  occupy  the 
same  place  that  she  has  in  the  past,  except  that  she  would  be 
more  fitted  by  practice  and  experience  to  take  the  place  of  the 
soldier  called  to  the  field. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  155 

The  ancient  Germans  possessed  sufficient  confidence  in  their 
women  to  place  in  their  hands  the  decision  of  their  legal  troubles, 
and  the  female  courts  were  the  admiration  of  their  contem- 
poraries for  their  unbiassed  justice  and  wisdom. 

Can  we  not:  manifest  enough  confidence  in  our  women  to  give 
them  a  share  in  our  public  affairs  ?  Must  we  wait  until  the  con- 
cession is  wrung  from  us  by  the  unanimous  demand  of  woman- 
kind, whose  voice  we,  as  civilized  men,  must  recognize  in  the 
household  or  in  pubHc,  although  unbacked  by  the  armed  force 
that  pessimists  deem  necessary? 

Cannot  we  refuse  to  lend  an  ear  to  the  clique  that  endeavors 
to  debar  others  from  the  right  that  they  are  too  prejudiced, 
timorous,  or  unpatriotic  to  desire  to  use,  and  say  to  woman :  '*We 
give  to  you  the  ballot,  as  your  undisputed  right  as  an  American 
citizen.  We  give  it  not  through  fear  or  coercion,  but  in  recog- 
nition of  your  right ;  and  we  will  defend  you  in  this,  your  right, 
as  we  have  defended  you  in  others  in  the  past;  and  we  shall 
expect  you  to  use  this  privilege  for  our  good  as  well  as  your 
own  and  the  common  welfare  of  the  country?" 

If,  then,  in  some  future  time,  the  contingency  dreaded  by  the 
timorcus  should  arise,  and  a  number  of  relics  of  barbarism 
should  attempt  to  thwart  by  force  the  will  of  the  people,  I  trust 
there  will  be  enough  right-thinking  men  and  right-thinking  wom- 
en of  all  parties  and  opinions  to  compel  observance  of  the  law. 
When  there  are  not  such,  the  government  had  better  fall  at 
once  as  being  too  civilized  for  a  race  degenerated  into  bar- 
barism. 

W^  gave  life,  work,  intellect,  and  money  in  untold  profusion 
to  free  the  slaves.  Are  we  not  generous  enough  to  do  the  same 
for  the  rights  of  our  mothers,  wives,  and  sisters? 


Arena.  49:  92-4.  July,  1908. 

Shall  Our  Mothers,  Wives,  and  Sisters  Be  Our  Equals  or  Our 
Subjects?     Frank  Parsons. 

Sex  has  no  essential  relation  to  suffrage.  The  reasoning  on 
which  the  case  for  manhood  suffrage  rests  is  that  the  ballot  is 
necessary  as   a   protection   against   injustice,   and   very   desirable 


156  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

as  a  means  of  education  and  development.  These  reasons  ap- 
ply to  women  as  well  as  to  men.  The  only  limitations  placed 
upon  manhood  suffrage  relate  to  age,  intelHgence,  character  and 
interest,  or  residence  and  identification  with  the  country  sufficient 
to  justify  the  interference  of  interest,  and  these  should  be  the 
only  limitations  placed  upon  woman  suffrage. 

Inconsistency  is  supposed  to  be  feminine,  but  consistency  is 
not  a  prevalent  virtue  even  with  men.  We  make  a  vigorous 
statement  of  inherent  and  inalienable  rights  and  would  fly  to 
arms  if  any  one  denied  us  political  liberty  and  equality,  yet  we 
deny  those  sacred  rights  to  those  within  our  power.  We  declare 
that  taxation  without  representation  is  tyranny,  but  tax  numbers 
of  women  directly  and  practically  the  whole  mass  of  women  in- 
directly without  representation  in  either  case,  so  we  are  self-con- 
fessed tyrants  unless  it  is  understood  that  there  is  a  mental 
reservation  to  the  effect  that  it  must  be  a  man  who  is  taxed 
without  representation  or  there  is  no  tyranny.  We  affirm  the 
governments  derive  their  just  powers  from  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned, but  exclude  the  consent  of  half  of  the  governed.  We 
profess  democracy  and  establish  an  aristocracy  of  men.  We 
boast  of  our  liberty  and  hold  the  best  part  of  the  people  in 
subjection.  We  proclaim  a  republic  and  ignore  the  fact  that  no 
real  republic  can  exist  where  half  of  the  people  of  full  age  and 
discretion,  character  and  interest  have  no  part  in  the  elections, 
and  though  they  have  to  obey  the  laws  are  allowed  no  voice  in 
making  them.  We  gave  the  suffrage  to  millions  of  unprepared 
slaves,  and  claimed  it  for  ourselves  (or  our  ancestors  did,  and 
we  approve  the  act,  with  some  slight  modifications,  perhaps) 
centuries  before  we  knew  much  about  using  it,  believing  the 
use  the  best  means  of  developing  fitness  for  use,  and  yet  we 
deny  the  suffrage  to  women  because  they  are  not  familiar  with 
politics.  We  permit  the  slums  of  New  York  and  Chicago  to 
vote,  but  deny  the  privilege  to  such  women  as  Susan  B.  An- 
thony, Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton,  Mary  A.  Livermore,  Jane 
Addams,  Clara  Barton  and  a  host  of  the  best  minds  on  earth,  on 
the  ground  that  women  do  not  know  enough  to  vote.  We  allow 
multitudes  of  men  to  vote  who  are  exempt  from  military  duty 
and  yet  deny  the  right  to  women  because  they  cannot  fight,  and 
even   Herbert    Spencer   deems   this    argument   conclusive.       We 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  157 

give  the  suffrage  to  millions  of  men  who  do  not  care  enough 
for  it  to  use  it,  and  yet  deny  it  to  women  because  some  of.  them 
do  not  wish  to  vote.  With  our  brothers  over  the  sea  a  woman 
may  sit  on  a  throne,  but  is  not  permitted  to  sit  in  Parliament. 

Justice  seems  to  say,  "Put  the  age  of  discretion  where  ex- 
perience indicates  the  reasonable  average  to  be,  and  make  the 
requirements  as  to  character,  intelligence  and  interest  what  you 
please.  Then  if  women  come  up  to  the  requirements  let  them 
vote,  and  if  men  do  not  come  up  to  those  requirements  refuse 
them  the  ballot.  To  be  just  is  to  treat  all  persons  alike  under 
the  same  essential  circumstances,  and  sex  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  reasons  on  which  the  suffrage  rests.  Women  are  as 
much  entitled  as  men  to  the  education,  development,  influence 
and  protection  afforded  by  the  ballot.  Exclude  women  who  prove 
to  be  unfit  in  the  light  of  impartial  and  relevant  tests,  but 
do  not  class  the  whole  sex  with  infants,  idiots,  criminals,  In- 
dians, aliens  and  paupers." 

In  four  of  our  states  and  in  New  Zealand  women  have  the 
full  suffrage,  and  its  exercise  has  been  attended  with  none  of 
the  evils  predicted  by  its  opponents,  but  with  beneficial  results 
so  marked  as  to  call  forth  emphatic  statements  in  its  favor  by 
leading  legislatures,  judges  of  the  highest  courts,  and  other 
leading  officials  who  affirm  that  woman  suffrage  has  tended 
strongly  to  purify  politics,  improve  the  character  of  nominations 
and  aid  the  enforcement  of  the  law.  The  approval  of  equal 
suffrage  is  all  but  universal  where  it  has  been  tried,  almost  the 
only  exception  being  the  case  of  some  would-be  politician  who 
might  get  what  he  wants  if  it  were  not  for  the  women's  vote, 
or  the  case  of  an  individual  like  the  man  from  Wyoming  who 
declared  that  woman  suffrage  was  a  failure  in  that  state,  but 
when  they  looked  up  his  record  they  found  he  had  carried  the 
ball  and  chain  for  an  unpleasant  period  in  consequence  of  the 
verdict  of  a  jury  of  women. 

In  Kansas  and  in  England  women  enjoy  the  right  of  munici- 
pal suffrage ;  and  in  25  of  our  states  they  have  the  school  suf- 
frage. There  is  no  doubt  that  the  full  suffrage  already  adopted 
in  four  of  our  states  will  come  in  all.  Certainly  there  is  much 
need  for  its  adoption  and  need  of  the  most  vital  moment. 

The  laws  and  governments  made  by  men  have  not  been  fair 


158  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

to  women  or  children.  By  the  common  law  a  married  woman 
has  no  property  rights,  nor  any  legal  existence.  Husband  and 
wife  are  one,  and  the  husband  is  the  one.  A  married  woman 
is  a  fenime  coverte,  or  a  woman  under  the  cover  or  wing  of  her 
husband,  and  being  so  hidden  the  common  law  cannot  see  her 
but  recognizes  the  husband  as  the  only  personality  in  sight  of 
the'laiw.  In  Shakespeare's  day  a  woman  practically  belonged  to 
her  husband  the  same  as  his  horse  or  dog  except  that  he  could  not 
kill  her  suddenly.  In  the  early  part  of  this  century,  it  is  said  a  man 
in  England  led  his  wife  to  market  with  a  rope  about  her  neck, 
and  sold  her  in  the  street,  getting  more  for  the  rope  than  for 
the  woman.  Blackstone  says  that  a  man  may  give  his  wife 
moderate  correction,  but  I  have  hunted  in  vain  through  Black- 
stone  to  find  a  similar  right  granted  to  the  wife  against  her 
husband.  It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  the  law  is  not 
without  its  compensations,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  case  of  darky 
Reuben  who  made  a  complaint  against  his  wife  for  beating  him, 
and  got  her  convicted  and  fined,  whereupon  she  having  no 
rnoney  he  had  to  pay  the  fine  himself. 

Miss  Diana  Hirschler,  in  her  address  at  the  Washington 
suffrage  convention  a  few  years  ago,  cites  an  old  writer  as  say- 
ing, "If  a  man  beat  an  outlaw,  a  traitor,  a  pagan  or  his  wife,  it 
is  dispunishable,  for  by  the  Law  Common  these  can  have  no 
action,"  adding  very  appropriately,  "God  grant  gentle  women  bet- 
ter sport  and  better  company."  The  fact  is  that  women  were 
formerly  thought  of  by  men  as  their  property,  and  the  denial 
of  civic  and  legal  rights  was  the  natural  consequence  of  that 
conception.  With  the  growth  of  enlightenment  the  law  has  been 
changed  by  statute  in  many  respects,  but  the  continued  denial 
of  civic  equality  is  a  persistent  remnant  of  the  conception 
born  of  a  barbarous  age,  that  woman  belongs  to  man.  Even 
the  lighter  disabilities  were  slow  in  going,  and  are  not  all 
gone  yet.  Only  a  generation  ago  a  man  in  Massachusetts  mar- 
ried a  woman  who  had  $50,000  in  personality.  He  took  pos- 
session of  it  as  he  had  a  legal  right  to  do,  and  then  made  a 
will  providing  that  in  case  of  his  death  the  lady  should  have 
the  income  from  the  $50,000  during  her  life,  provided  she  did 
not  marry  again.  In  Massachusetts  and  other  states  a  woman 
can  now  control  her  property,  for  the  most  part.     But  the  laws 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  159 

are  still  in  many  respects  unjust.  Joint  earnings  and  funds  be- 
long to  the  husband  absolutely,  so  that  if  a  wife  allows  her 
money  or  her  personality  to  become  mixed  with  her  husband's, 
she  loses  legal  control  of  it.  In  about  one-third  of  our  states 
the  husband  can  appropriate  his  wife's  earnings  just  as  he 
can  take  the  earnings  of  his  horse  and  wagon.  In  all  but  eight 
of  our  states  the  mother  is  still  denied  an  equal  right  with 
the  father  to  the  control  of  their  children.  The  laws  of  divorce 
are  not  impartial.  The  laws  of  descent  of  property  are  not 
equal.  A  widow's  dower  affects  only  a  third  of  the  realty  of 
her  husband,  while  a  widower's  curtesy  relates  to  the  whole  of 
his  wife's  real  estate.  Children  under  man-made  lawa  are  left 
to .  fester  by  thousands  in  an  atmosphere  pestilent  with  immoral 
and  criminal  influences,  left  to  "soak  and  blacken  soul  and  body 
in  the  slime  of  city  slums."  In  many  of  our.  states  the  law 
makes  no  effective  effort  to  remove  the  saloon,  the  gambling- 
den  and  the  brothel  from  the  path  of  youth,  nor  to  banish 
the  poisonous  cigarette  or  the  still  more  poisonous  "literature" 
of  sensationalism  and  immorality.  It  is  time  the  women  had  a 
chance  to  see  what  they  can  do.  They  make  home  pure  and 
beautiful.  They  can  make  our  streets  and  cities  pure  and  beau- 
tiful also.  Their  sovereignty  in  the  home  is  beneficient ;  their 
sovereignty  in  the  state  will  be  no  less  so. 

It  is  the  right  of  woman  to  use  not  only  the  power  of  per- 
suasion, but  the  power  of  the  ballot  to  protect  herself  and  her 
children.  The  ballot  is  the  point  at  which  intelligence  and  moral 
sentiment  take  hold  upon  action  and  mold  institutions  and  laws. 
Woman  has  a  right  to  this  most  effective  means  of  transform- 
ing the  social  environment  into  greater  fitness  for  the  highest 
life  of  herself  and  all  her  loved  ones.  It  is  the  right  of  woman 
also  to  enjoy  the  educating  and  developing  effects  of  civic  re- 
sponsibilities. 

It  is  the  right  of  man  that  woman  shall  vote  in  order  that 
his  companionship  with  her  may  be  lifted  to  the  plane  of  equal- 
ity, and  blessed  with  a  new  development,  a  new  element  of  pow- 
er and  thought  and  sj^mpathy.  What  man  would  have  his  wife 
and  daughters  subjects  instead  of  equals?  What  man  would 
deny  to  his  mother  the  right  he  claims  for  himself?  It  is  a 
man's  right  to  have  his  children  born  and  reared  by  women  who 


i6o  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

have  had  full  advantages  of  development  and  who  understand 
the  world  and  conditions  under  which  their  children  will  live. 

It  is  the  right  of  children,  living  and  unborn,  to  have  the 
ennobled  motherhood  and  the  more  excellent  training  that  will 
come  with  a  symmetrical,  well-rounded,  fully  developed  woman- 
hood. It  is  the  right  of  every  child  to  be  born  and  reared  by  a 
sovereign  citizen  and  not  by  a  subject.  It  is  the  right  of  every 
child  that  the  mothers  of  the  land  shall  have  the  power  to  banish 
vicious  influences  from  the  social  and  political  environment  in 
which  the  child  must  live,  the  power  to  bring  the  force  and  wis- 
dom of  mother-love  to  bear  directly  on  civic  affairs  to  purify 
and  invigorate  the  civic  and  social  atmosphere  the  child  must 
breathe  throughout  its  formative  years. 

It  is  the  right  of  society  to  have  the  purest  force  in  the 
world  put  into  action  in  political  life.  It  is  the  right  of  society 
to  have  the  virtue,  love  and  devotion  of  womanhood  crystal- 
lized into  law.  Women  are  far  less  influenced  by  the  commer- 
cial spirit  than  men.  Commercialism  is  the  danger  of  our  time. 
The  despotism, of  the  dollar  is  the  threat  of  the  future.  The 
power  of  women  in  politics  would  be  of  incalculable  value  in  the 
resistance  it  would  offer  to  the  domination  of  the  mercantile 
spirit,  and  the  conscienceless  pursuit  of  gain.  Women  have  a 
higher  regard  for  principle  than  men.  They  love  justice  and 
mercy.  They  are  against  oppression.  They  would  favor  peace 
even  if  trade  should  suffer.  They  would  banish  the  slums  and 
make  cities  beautiful.  Their  gentleness,  sympathy,  refinement 
and  incorruptibility  are  sadly  needed  in  our  politics ;  their  no- 
bility should  be  registered  in  our  statutes. 


Century.  48:  605-13.  August,  1894. 

Right  and  Expediency  of  Woman   Suffrage.     George  F.   Hoar. 

There  are  a  great  many  things  women  are  not  expected  to 
do.  There  are  a  great  many  things  that  no  doctor  of  divinity 
or  college  professor,  or  very  old  man  or  very  young  man,  is 
expected  to  do.  If  the  process  of  voting  or  attending  political 
meetings  will  degrade  women,  it  will  degrade  clergymen.  If 
it  will  soil  the  purity  of  delicate  and  refined  ladies,  it  will  soi! 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  i6i 

the  purity  of  delicate  and  refined  gentlemen.  Meanness,  coarse- 
ness, selfishness,  violence,  and  fraud  are  not  of  the  essence  of 
government.  If  the  fastidious  refined  scholar  or  man  of  wealth 
will  not  leave  his  palace  in  Fifth  avenue  to  go  to  the  polling- 
places  in  the  city  of  New  York,  the  government  of  that  city 
will  perhaps  be  abandoned  to  the  base  and  criminal  classes.  But 
give  his  wife  and  daughter  the  right  to  go,  and  he  will  go  with 
them,  and  he  will  see  to  it  that  the  process  of  voting  is  con- 
ducted under  conditions  and  with  surroundings  which  will  make 
it  decent  and  clean,  and  fit  for  the  participation  of  every  refined 
person  of  either  sex. 

Shall  women  leave  the  cradle,  or  the  parlor,  or  the  kitchen, 
to  plunge  into  politics?  No.  Shall  our  farmers  leave  the  farm, 
or  our  scholars  the  study,  or  our  workmen  the  factory,  or  our 
sailors  the  ship,  to  plunge  into  politics?     No. 

Women  can  contribute  their  share  to,  and  exercise  their 
right  in,  the  government  of  the  state  with  not  more  sacrifice  of 
the  other  duties  of  life  than  is  made  by  their  husbands  or  broth- 
ers. There  are  some  public  duties  which  require  the  devotion 
of  a  large  part  of  the  working  hours  of  life,  and  in  some  cases 
the  entire  life  of  the  citizen  to  whom  they  are  assigned.  As 
many  of  these  duties  can  be  performed  by  the  women  as  by  the 
men,  and  the  public  duties  which  can  be  performed  by  women 
as  well  as  by  men,  are  as  important  to  the  well-being  of  the 
state.  There  are  many  duties  for  which  most  women  are  un- 
fitted. There  are  some  few  for  which  all  women  are  unfitted. 
There  are  many  public  duties  for  which  most  men  are  unfitted, 
and  there  are  some  which — as  I  hope  it  may  come  in  the  course 
of  time  to  be  seen — are  unfit  for  any  human  being,  man  or 
woman,  to  perform,  and  which  in  the  better  time  that  we  look 
for  will  cease  to  be  considered  duties  at  all. 

The  same  arguments  with  which  we  have  to  deal  have  been 
used  against  every  extension  of  suffrage.  Good  and  wise  men 
dreaded  to  admit  the  large  mass  of  ignorant  and  poor,  men 
easily  excited  by  passion,  to  the  great  and  sacred  work  of  rul- 
ing the  state.  But  history  and  experience  have  shown  us  that 
on  the  whole  that  state  is  best  ruled  where  the  largest  number 
of  citizens  have  a  share  in  its  government.  The  evils  of  uni- 
versal  suffrage,  whatever  they  are,   can  easily  be   shown  to  be 


i62  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

less    than    the    evil    of    oligarchy,    or   of    a    government    of    any 
privileged  classes. 

There  are  plenty  of  disturbing  causes  to  swerve  the  govern- 
ing power  in  the  state  from  the  simple  course  of  wisdom  and 
rectitude.  But  I  believe  that  the  larger  the  numbei^of  persons 
who  share  in  the  government  the  more  likely  the  simple  natural 
law  is  to  prevail  and  the  disturbing  forces  to  disappenr.  Per- 
sonal ambition  may  control  the  government  given  to  one  man. 
Give  the  government  to  twenty  men,  and  you  have  twenty  in- 
terests to  control  the  disturbing  cause.  Each  of  the  twent}^  will 
be  likely  to  have  some  prejudice  and  some  interests  which  con- 
flict with  those  of  the  others.  The  larger  the  number,  the  less 
likely  the  disturbing  causes  to  operate  and  the  more  likely  to 
control  one  another.  Add  lOO  per  cent,  to  the  voting  population 
of  this  country,  and  you  decrease  the  proportionate  power  of 
the -disturbing  forces  operating  to  overcome  the  sirnple  law  and 
the  interest  of  the  nation  which  should  direct  and  control  its 
government.  You  make  it  harder  to  buy  up  the  votes  in  num- 
bers enough  to  corrupt  the  community.  The  passion  on  one 
side  is  neutralized  by  the  passion  on  the  other.  The  rogues 
have  less  influence,  because  rogues  do  not  agree.  One  has  one 
motive  for  selfishness,  another  has  a  different  one.  The  ap- 
peals to  class  prejudice,  attempts  to  excite  contempt  and  deri- 
sion or  ignorance  or  jealousy  and  envy  towards  wealth  and 
education,  abound,  unhappily,  to-day.  But  I  believe  they  are 
less  than  they  were  in  the  time  of  Washington  and  Jefferson. 
The  questions  asked  to-day  on  our  political  platforms,  as  to 
the  matter  which  is  up  for  discussion,  are:  Is  it  right?  Is  it 
just?  Is  it  humane?  Is  it  for  the  highest  welfare  of  the 
state?  No  speaker  touches  a  public  audience  better  than  he 
who  appeals  to  the  best,  purest,  and  highest  motives  in  our  na- 
ture. 

Contemporary  Review.  94:   11 -6.  July,  1908. 

LiberaHsm  and  Woman's  Suffrage.     Bertrand  Russell. 

The  chief  traditional  argument  in  favour  of  democracy  is 
that  it  is  difficult  for  one  class  to  judge  of  the  interest  of  an- 
other, and  rare  for  one  class  to  care  as  much  for  the  interest  of 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  163 

another  as-for  its  own.  The  illustrations  of  this  in  history  are 
too  numerons  to  need  citing:  oligarchies  have  invariably  been 
more  or  less  ignorant  of  and  indifferent  to  the  interests  of  those 
whom'  they  governed.  It  may  be  said  that  the  relations  of  men 
and  women  are  so  close  that  this  particular  argument  does  not 
apply  to  the  case  of  women.  But  I  think  this  view  is  not 
borne  out  by  the  facts.  (There  are,  as  every  one  knows,  many 
respects  in  which  the  Idws  are  unequal  as  between  men  and 
women.  And  there  are  many  evils  from  which  women  suffer 
which  are  quietly  accepted  as  inevitable,  because  those  who  have 
political  power  are  not  those  who  have  to  endure  the  evils. 
Is  it  just,  for  example,  that  a  working  woman  and  her  children 
should,  through  no  fault  of  her  Own  be  reduced  to  destitu- 
tion if  her  husband  takes  to  drink?  Yet  no  one  regards  this  as 
a  political  question. 

But  perhaps  a  more  important  argument  for  democracy  is 
its  educational  effect  on  the  voter  and  its  effect  in  improving 
the  relations  between  different  classes.  To  speak  first  of  the 
educational  effect :  There  is  the  direct  education  of  being  brought 
into  contact  with  political  questions,  and  there  is  the  education 
of  character  resulting  from  responsibility  and  freedom.  Of 
these  two,  the  education  of  character  seems  to  me  the  more  im- 
portant, but  the  other  is  by  no  means  a  small  matter.  Anyone 
who  has  watched  an  election  must  have  been  struck  by  the 
amount  of  knowledge  on  politics  which  the  voters  acquire  from 
meetings  and  canvassers,  and  discussions  among  themselves.  The 
diffusion  of  such  knowledge  throughout  the  population  not  only 
increases  the  stability  of  a  civilization,  but  also  has  the  merit 
of  making  people  aware  of  greater  and  more  important  mat- 
ters than,  are  to  be  found  in  their  personal   circumstances. 

Closely  connected  with  this  purely  political  education  is  the 
education  of  character  which  I  spoke  of  just  now.  It  is  good 
for  people  to  feel  that  momentous  questions  depend  in  part  up- 
on their  decision :  it  leads  them  to  think  responsibly  and  serious- 
ly, and  it  cultivates  self-respect.  One  of  the  great  arguments 
in  favour  of  liberty  is  that  those  who  have  the  direction  of 
their  own  lives  are  in  general  intrinsically  better  than  they 
would  have  been  if  others  had  regulated  their  lives  for  them. 
And  this  applies  with  at  least  as  much  force  to  the  part  of  life 


.1^4  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

which  is  political  or  affected  by  politics  as  it  does  to  more 
private  concerns.  Therefore,  when  it  is  said  that  women  should 
be  politically  educated  first  before  being  given  the  vote,  it  isi 
forgotten  that  the  vote  itself  is  the  great  engine  of  political/ 
education.  This  has  proved  to  be  the  case  with  working  meij 
who  very  generally  had  hardly  any  political  education  befor^ 
they  got  the  vote;  and  that  it  will  prove  so  with  women  seems 
not  open  to   doubt. 

Another  of  the  arguments  for  democracy  is  that  it  improves 
the  relations  between  classes.  When  one  class  has  power  and 
another  has  not,  those  who  have  the  power  are  not  likely  to 
feel  as  much  respect  for  those  who  have  not  as  for  those  who 
have.  We  all  know  the  aristocratic  attitude  in  politics,  the  at- 
titude which  instinctively  ignores  all  interests  except  those  of 
its  own  class,  and  feels  that  other  classes  are  comparatively  of 
no  account.  This  attitude  has  been  rapidly  dying  out  under  the 
influence  of  popular  election.  But  in  relation  to  women  all 
men  are  in  the  position  of  aristocrats,  and  a  contempt  for  the 
opinions  or  interests  of  women  receives  no  political  punish- 
ment. Considering  how  much  closer  are  the  relations  of  men 
and  women  than  the  relations  of  different  classes,  and  how  much 
better  for  both  parties  are  equal  relations  than  unequal  ones, 
this  must  be  regarded  as  a  powerful  argument  in  favour  of 
giving  votes  to  women.  For  it  seems  certain  that  the  political 
enfranchisement  of  women  would  react  beneficially  on  private 
life,  engendering  greater  liberty  and  greater  mutual  respect  in 
the  relations  of  the  sexes. 

The  chief  arguments  of  principle  in  favour  of  women's  suf- 
frage may,  then,  be  summed  up  as  follows :  First,  that  from 
defect  of  imagination  and  good  will  no  class  can  be  trusted 
to  care  adequately  for  the  interests  of  another  class,  and  that, 
in  fact,  women's  interests  have  been  unduly  neglected  by  men. 
Secondly,  that  participation  in  politics  widens  people's  outlook, 
and  improves  character  by  cultivating  self-respect  and  a  sense 
of  responsibility;  and  that  these  advantages  are  just  as  certain 
to  accrue  to  women  if  they  have  the  vote  as  they  were  to  ac- 
crue to  working  men.  Thirdly,  that  it  is  easier  to  give  due  re- 
spect to  those  who  have  the  same  legal  powers  as  we  have,  and 
that  a  feeling  of  equality  between  men  and  women  is  of  im- 
mense benefit,  not  only   in  politics,  but  in  private  life. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  165 

I  ought  to  add  among  the  arguments  of  principle  the  argu- 
ment of  abstract  justice.  This  argument  is  sometimes  supposed 
to  rest  upon  an  antiquated  philosophy  of  natural  right,  and  is, 
therefore,  now  rather  discredited.  But  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
to  require  any  such  fallacious  foundation.  To  inflict  a  special 
disability  upon  any  class  of  the  community  is  in  itself  an  evil, 
and  is  calculated  to  generate  resentment  on  the  one  side  and 
arrogance  on  the  other.  It  may  be  admitted  that  this  evil,  in 
some  cases,  is  more  than  balanced  by  compensating  advantages ; 
but  it  remains  evil,  and  any  gain  for  the  sake  of  which  it 
is  to  be  endured  must  be  very  great  and  very  certain.  In  the 
case  of  disabilities  of  women,  no  such  gain  is  apparent,  and 
the  argument  from  justice  must  therefore  be  admitted. 

Having  now  considered  the  main  arguments  in  favour  of 
giving  votes  to  women,  I  will  pass  to  some  of  the  arguments 
on  the  other  side. 

(i)  We  are  often  told  that  women  are  unreasonable,  that 
they  are  governed  by  their  emotions,  and  that  they  are  unable 
to  understand  politics.  I  do  not  know  that  I  need  waste  much 
time  on  this  argument.  ''Reason,"  in  the  mouths  of  those  men 
who  advance  this  modest  opinion,  generally  means  "wanting 
what  I  want,"  and  "being  governed  by  emotions"  means  "want- 
ing what  I  don't  want."  Queen  Elizabeth  considered  the  House 
of  Commons  incapable  of  understanding  foreign  politics,  be-  ^ 
cause  their  aims  were  not  the  same  as  hers.  The  House  of 
Lords  considers  the  House  of  Commons  incapable  of  under- 
standing the  land  question,  because  the  House  of  Commons 
does  not  recognize  the  paramount  necessity  of  increasing  rents. 
I  suspect  women's  incapacity  for  politics  is  of  the  same  kind, 
and  that  if  they  alone  had  the  vote  it  would  be  men  who  would  1 
be  incapable  and  emotional. 

(2)  We  are  told  that  women  would  be  priest-ridden,  that 
they  would  vote  always  at  the  dictation  of  their  religious  ad- 
visers. In  Catholic  countries  there  may  be  some  truth  in  this 
as  things  stand,  though  in  Great  Britain  there  seems  no  reason 
whatever  to  think  it  would  be 'the  case.  But  if  it  were  true, 
it  would  only  mark  the  neglect  of  women's  political  education, 
which  is  due  to  their  exclusion  from  the  vote,  and  would  pre- 
sumably   be    remedied    by    their    enfranchisement.      If    it    were 


i66  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

not  remedied,  that  would  mean  that  a  mmority  are  inflicting 
their  policy  upon  the  majority,  and  that  those  who  fear  priestly 
domination  are  nevertheless  prepared  to  prolong  their  own  dom- 
ination because  they  are  so  certain  that  it  is  the  better.  But 
such  a  position  is  the  negation  of  all  democratic  principles,  and 
would,  if  logically  carried  out,  be  found  to  justify  all  degrees 
of  intolerance,  including  religious  persecution.  This  argument, 
therefore,  even  if  it  were  not  mistaken  as  to  facts,  would  not 
be  available  for  anyone  who  believes  in  popular  government. 

(3)  Women,  it  is  said,  ought  not  to  have  the  vote  because 
they  cannot  fight.  If  this  argument  were  pushed  home  we  ought 
to  disfranchise  all  men  who  are  too  old  to  fight,  or  are  in  any 
way  physically  incapable;  and  we  ought  to  disfranchise  Quakers 
because  they  will  not  fight.  But  it  is  hard  to  see  why  the  vote 
would  be  confined  to  those  who  can  fight.  The  idea  seems  to 
be  that  you  will  have  all  the  men  on  one  sid^  and  all  the  women 
on  the  other,  and  that  then  the  action  of  the  majority  would 
be  defeated  by  an  appeal  to  arms.  But  the  supposition  is  so 
fantastic  that  it  is  hard  to  take  it  seriously,  especially  as  the 
same  people  who  make  it  tell  us  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  give 
votes  to  women,  because  they  would  always  vote  with  their 
husbands.  The  notion  that  in  such  a  country  as  England  an 
appeal  to  arms  could  ever  be  made  successfully  against  the  de- 
cision of  Parliament  is  obviously  absurd ;  and  if  this  idea  is  not 
entertained,  the  question  whether  women  can  fight  is  of  no* 
importance. 

(4)  I  come  now  to  a  very  favourite  argument.  Women's- 
suffrage,  we  are  told,  would  promote  quarrels  in  families  and 
destroy  the  happiness  of  home  life.  Those  who  advance  this 
argument  apparently  think  that  it  is  impossible  to  discuss  with- 
out quarreling,  that  a  man  cannot  be  happy  unless  all  his 
words  are  received  as  oracles  by  a  dutiful  family,  and  that  the- 
ideal  of  home  life  is  to  avoid  all  conversation  on  every  impor- 
tant subject.  A  husband  and  wife  who  cannot  get  on  together 
unless  they  confine  themselves  to  trivialities  had  better,  I  should' 
say,  learn  a  little  mutual  forbearance ;  and  I  should  count  it 
among  the  advantages  of  women's  suffrage  that  it  would  tend 
to  promote  a  reasonable  discussion  of  things  outside  the  home. 

(5)  It  is  often   said   that  women  ought  not  to  have  votes- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  167 

because  they  do  not  want  them.  Those  who  say  this,  by  the 
way,  are  loudest  in  condemnation  of  those  women  who  have 
taken  steps  to  let  us  know  that  they  do  want  votes.  But  that  is 
natural,  for  no  one  is  so  annoying  as  a  person  who  disproves 
one's  favourite  argument.  Speaking  seriously,  the  allegation 
that  women  do  not  want  the  vote  is  rapidly  becoming  untrue,  al- 
though it  is  perhaps  not  yet  untrue  of  the  majority.  But  even 
if  it  is  still  true  of  the  majority,  it  does  not  warrant  the  conclu- 
sion that  women  ought  to  have  the  vote.  In  the  first  place,  ir 
does  not  warrant  the  exclusion  of  that  large  and  increasing  num- 
ber of  women  who  do  not  want  the  vote.  In  the  second  place, 
all  the  arguments  which  we  considered  in  favor  of  women's  suf- 
frage remain  valid,  even  if  women  are  indifferent,  and  when 
women  have  had  the  political  education  resulting  from  the  fran- 
chise, they  will  see  the  advantage  of  the  vote.  The  question, 
therefore,  whether  a  majority  of  women  desire  the  vote  is  not 
really  relevant  to  the  issue,  though  it  does,  of  course,  vitally  af- 
fect the  likelihood  of  their  getting  the  vote. 

(6)  One  bogey  which  is  used  to  frighten  timid  people  is  the 
argument  that  there  are  more  women  than  men  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  and  that,  therefore,  we  should  be  governed  by  women 
if  we  gave  the  vote  to  all  women.  Now,  in  the  first  piace,  very 
few  advocates  of  women's  suffrage  demand  the  vote  for  all 
women.  In  the  second  place,  if  it  is  urged  that  any  measure  of 
women's  suft'rage  would  be  merely  a  stage  on  the  way  to  the 
enfranchisement  of  all  women  (which  I  should  admit),  it  still 
does  not  follow  that  we  should  be  governed  by  women.  This 
assumes,  like  the  argument  that  women  cannot  fight,  that  we 
shall  have  all  women  on  one  side  and  all  men  on  the  other ;  but 
I  cannot  think  that  either  sex  will  make  themselves  so  very  ob- 
noxious as  to  bring  about  such  a  result  as  that.  And  in  the  third 
place,  even  if  we  were  governed  by  women,  would  it  be  so  very 
terrible?  At  present  we  are  governed  by  men,  and  the  result, 
though  perhaps  not  very  admirable,  is  one  which  we  all  endure 
patiently.  I  fail  to  see  why  being  governed  by  one  sex  should 
be  any  worse  than  being  governed  by  the  other.  This  argument, 
therefore,  is  peculiarly  futile,  for  what  it  dreads  would  certainly 
not  happen,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  think  it  would  matter  if 
it  did. 


i68  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Harper*s  Weekly.  50:  1702-3.  December  i,  1906. 

Positive  Arguments  for  Woman  Suffrage. 

Not  long  ago  we  recalled  some  of  the  current  objections  to 
woman  suffrage,  and  showed  how  conclusively  they  have  been 
refuted  by  John  Stuart  Mill.  No  less  cogent  are  the  positive 
arguments  marshalled  by  Mill  for  the  bestowal  of  the  franchise 
upon  women — arguments  put  forward  in  the  interest  of  men 
themselves.  Before  directing  attention  to  some  of  these,  how- 
ever, -we  should  glance  at  one  objection  which  previously  we 
overlooked,  namely,  that  at  present,  in  many  highly  civilized 
communities,  the  majority  of  women  seem  not  to  want  the 
suffrage,  and  that,  consequently,  the  concession  may  be  postponed 
until  they  ask  for  it.  As  Mill  recognized,  exactly  the  same  thing 
may  be  said  of  the  women  in  the  harem  of  an  Oriental :  They 
do  not  complain  because  the  freedom  of  European  women  is 
denied  to  them.  They  think  our  women  insufferably  bold  and 
unfeminine.  Even  among  men  complaint  of  the  general  order 
of  society  would  be  rare,  indeed,  if  they  did  not  know  of  a 
different  order  existing  somewhere  else.  The  same  phenomenon 
has  been  observed  in  all  other  cases  of  servitude,  at  least  in 
the  beginning  of  the  emancipatory  movement.  The  case  of 
women  is  now  the  only  case  in  which  to  rebel  against  established 
rules  is  still  looked  upon,  as  was  formerly,  a  subject's  claim  to 
the  right  of  rebelling  against  his  king.  It  was,  therefore,  Mill's 
conviction  that  women  cannot  be  expected  to  devote  themselves 
to  the  emancipation  of  their  sex  until  men,  in  considerable  num- 
ber, are  prepared  to  join  with  them  in  the  undertaking. 

Why  should  men  cooperate  in  the  movement?  Because,  in 
the  first  place,  woman's  right  to  the  suffrage  is  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  any  question  which  can  be  raised  concerning  the  rela- 
tive inferiority  or  superiority  of  her  faculties.  The  right  to 
share  in  the  choice  of  those  who  are  to  exercise  a  public  trust 
is  altogether  a  distinct  thing  from  that  of  competing  for  the 
trust  itself.  If  no  one  could  vote  for  a  member  of  Congress 
who  was  not  fit  to  be  a  candidate,  our  federal  government  would 
be,  indeed,  a  narrow  oligarchy.  To  have  a  voice  in  choosing 
those  of  whom  one  is  to  be  governed  is  a  ^  means  of  self-protec- 
tion due  to  every  one,  though  he  were  to  remain   forever  ex- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  169. 

eluded  from  the  function  of  governing;  and  that  women  are 
considered  fit  to  have  such  a  choice  may  be  presumed  from  the 
fact  that  the  law  already  gives  it  to  them  in  the  most  important 
of  all  cases  to  themselves ;  for  the  choice  of  the  man  who  as 
husband  is  to  govern  a  woman  to  the  end  of  her  life  is  always, 
supposed  to  be  made  voluntarily  by  herself.  It  is  true  that,  in 
the  case  of  election  to  public  trusts,  it  is  the  business  of  consti- 
tutional law  to  surround  the  right  of  suffrage  with  all  needful' 
securities  and  limitations;  but  whatever  securities  are  sufficient 
in  the  case  of  the  male  sex  should  be  acknowledged  to  be  ade- 
quate in  the  case  of  women  also. 

Turning  to  the  fitness  of  women  not  only  to  participate  in 
elections,  but  themselves  to  hold  public  offices,  Mill  submitted 
that,  if  the  political  system  of  a  country  is  such  as  to  exclude 
unfit  men,  it  would  equally  exclude  unfit  women;  while,  if  it; 
were  not,  there  would  be  no  additional  evil  in  the  fact  that  the 
.unfit  persons  admitted  might  be  either  women  or  men.  As. 
long  as  it  is  acknowledged  that  even  a  few  women  may  be  fit 
for  public  duties,  the  laws  which  shut  the  door  on  those  ex- 
ceptions cannot  be  justified  by  any  opinion  which  can  be  held' 
respecting  the  capacities  of  women  in  general.  Not  for  a  mo- 
ment, however,  would  Mill  admit  the  general  proposition  that,, 
as  a  rule,  women  are  incapable  of  governing.  He  maintains,  on 
the  contrary,  that  if  anything  conclusive  can  be  inferred  from 
experience,  without  recourse  to  psychological  analysis,  it  is  that 
the  things  which  women  are  not  allowed  to  do,  to  wit,  hold 
public  offices,  administrative  or  legislative,  are  the  very  ones- 
for  which  they  are  peculiarly  qualified;  since  their  innate  voca- 
tion for  government  has  made  its  way  and  become  conspicuous 
through  the  very  few  opportunities  which  have  been  accorded^ 
to  them ;  whereas,  in  the  lines  of  distinction,  which,  apparently, 
were  freely  opened  to  them,  such  as  painting,  sculpture,  archi- 
tecture, music,  philosophy,  science,  and  the  highest  grades  of 
literature,  they  have  by  no  means  equally  distinguished  them- 
selves. No  doubt  the  number  of  reigning  queens  presented  in 
history  is  small  in  comparison  with  that  of  kings.  Of  this  small- 
er number,  however,  a  far  larger  proportion  have  shown  talents 
for  rule ;  though  many  of  the  feminine  rulers  have  occupied 
the  throne  in  difficult  periods.     It  is  no  less  remarkable  that,  in- 


I70  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

a  great  number  of  instances,  feminine  rulers  have  been  distin- 
guished by  merits  the  most  opposite  to  the  imaginary  and  (K)n- 
ventional  character  of  women ;  they  have  been  as  conspicuous 
for  the  firmness  and  vigor  of  their  rule  as  for  its  intelligence. 
If  to  queens  and  empresses  be  added  regents  and  viceroys  of 
provinces,  the  list  of  women  who  have  been  eminent  rulers  of 
mankind  swells  to  a  great  length.  Mill's  long  official  acquain- 
tance with  the  affairs  of  India  enabled  him  to  aver  that  if  a 
Hindu  principality  is  strongly,  vigilantly,  and  economically  gov- 
erned, in  three  cases  out  of  four  that  principality  will  be  found 
to  be  under  a  woman's  rule.  There  are  many  such  instances ; 
for  though,  by  Hindu  institutions,  a  woman  cannot  reign,  she 
can  be,  and  frequently  is,  the  legal  regent  of  a  kingdom  during 
the  minority  of  the  heir.  When  we  consider  that  these  princesses 
have  never  been  seen  in  public,  have  never  conversed  with  any 
man  not  of  their  own  family  except  from  behind  a  curtain, 
and  that  they  do  not  read,  the  example  they  afford  of  the  nat- 
ural capacity  of  women  for  government  must  be  acknowledged 
to  be  very  striking.  Is  it  reasonable,  then,  asks  Mill,  to  assert 
that  those  who  have  shown  themselves  fit  for  the  greater  func- 
tions of  politics  are  incapable  of  qualifying  themselves  for  the 
less?  Is  there  any  reason,  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  the 
wives  and  sisters  of  princes  should,  wherever  called  on,  be  found 
as  competent  as  the  princes  themselves  to  their  business,  but 
that  the  wives  and  sisters  of  statesmen  and  administrators  should 
be  unable  to  do  what  is  done  by  their  brothers  and  husbands? 
The  truth  is  that  exactly  where,  and  in  proportion  as  women's 
capacities  for  government  have  been  tried,  in  that  proportion 
have  they  been  found  adequate. 

Mill  went  so  far  as  to  contend  that  women,  considered  as  a 
whole,  are  even  better  qualified  than  men  for  legislation  and 
administration,  because  they  are  more  practical.  The  special 
nature  of  the  mental  capacities  most  characteristic  of  a  woman 
of  talent  are  all  of  a  kind  which  fits  them  for  practice,  and 
makes  them  tend  towards  it.  For  what  is  meant  by  a  woman's 
capacity  of  intuitive  perception?  It  means  a  rapid  and  correct 
insight  into  present  fact.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  general 
principles.  When,  however,  women  chance  to  be  conversant 
with  such  general  principles,  or,  in  other  words,  to  be  as  well 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  171 

provided,  by  reading  and  education,  as  men  are  with  the  broad 
results  of  other  people's  experience,  they  are  better  furnished 
than  are  men  in  general  with  the  essential  requisites  of  skilful 
and  successful  practice.  Men  who  'have  been  much  taught  are 
apt  to  be  deficient  in  the  sense  of  present  facts;  they  do  not 
see  in  the  facts  which  they  are  called  upon  to  deal  with  what 
is  really  there,  but  what  they  have  been  taught  to  expect.  This 
is  seldom  the  case  with  women  of  any  ability.  Their  capacity 
of  "intuition"  preserves  them  from  it.  In  fine,  with  equality 
of  experience  and  the  general  faculties,  a  woman  usually  sees 
much  more  than  a  man  of  what  is  immediately  before  her.  Mill 
goes  to  show  that  this  sensibility  to  the  present  is  the  main 
quality  on  which  the  capacity  for  practice,  as  distinguished  from 
theory,  depends.  Women  are  comparatively  unlikely  to  fall 
into  a  common  error  of  men,  that,  namely,  of  sticking  to  their 
rules  in  a  case  whose  specialties  either  take  it  out  of  the  class 
to  which  the  rules  are  applicable,  or  require  a  special  adapta- 
tion to  them.- 

Much  was  said  in  Mill's  time,  and  is  said  now,  about  the 
greater  nervous  susceptibility  of  women  being  a  disqualification 
for  practice  in  anything  but  domestic  life,  by  rendering  them 
mobile,  changeable,  and  incapable  of  dogged  perservance.  Their 
nervous  susceptibility  may  be  traced  largely,  if  not  mainly,  ta 
the  way  in  which  they  are  brought  up.  Women  who  in  their  early 
years  have  shared  in  the  healthful  physical  education  and  bodily 
freedom  of  their  brothers,  and  who,  in  after  life,  obtain  a  suffi- 
ciency of  pure  air  and  exercise,  very  rarely  exhibit  such  exces- 
sive susceptibility  of  nerves  as  might  disqualify  them  for  active 
pursuits.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  that  what  we  call  the  nervous 
temperament  may  be  inherited  by  a  greater  number  of  women 
than  men.  Assuming  this  to  be  a  fact,  we  may  ask  whether, 
men  of  nervous  temperament  are  found  to  be  unfit  for  the  du- 
ties and  pursuits  usually  followed  by  men?  If  not,  why  should 
women  of  the  same  temperament  be  unfit  for  them?  It  has, 
indeed,  been  observed  that  the  peculiarities  of  the  nervous  tem- 
perament, while  no  doubt  within  certain  limits  an  obstacle  to 
success  in  some  employments,  are  an  aid  to  it  in  others.  When 
the  occupation  is  suitable  to  the  temperament,  and  sometimes 
when   it   is   unsuitable,   the   most   brilliant   examples    of    success. 


172  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

are  continually  given  by  men  of  high  nervous  sensibility.  It  is 
the  specific  character  of  the  nervous  temperament  to  be  capable 
of  sustained  excitement,  holding  out  through  long-continued  ef- 
fort. It  is  this  capability  which  makes  the  high-bred  racehorse 
run  with  sustained  speed  till  he  drops  down  dead,  and  which  has 
enabled  many  delicate  women  to  maintain  the  most  sublime  con- 
stancy, not  only  at  the  stake,  but  through  a  long  preliminary 
series  of  bodily  and  mental  tortures.  Mill's  observations  have  led 
him  to  believe  that  people  of  this  temperament  are  particularly 
apt  for  what  may  be  called  the  executive  department  of  the 
leadership  of  mankind.  To  them  we  must  look  for  the  material 
of  great  orators,  great  thinkers,  impressive  diffusers  of  moral 
influences.  It  may,  at  first  sight,  be  presumed  that  their  con- 
stitution would  be  less  favorable  to  the  qualities  required  from 
a  statesman  in  the  cabinet  or  from  a  judge;  and  it  would  be 
so,  if  the  consequence  necessarily  followed  that,  because  people 
are  excitable,  they  must  always  be  in  a  state  of  excitement.  But 
this  is  wholly  a  question  of  training. 
' — '  Still  confining  ourselves  to  the  man's  point  of  view,  we  should 
not  overlook  another  benefit  to  be  expected  from  conceding  the 
franchise  to  women.  We  should  thus  double  the  mass  of  men- 
tal faculties  available  for  the  higher  service  of  the  community. 
Where  there  is  now  one  person  qualified  to  benefit  mankind  and 
promote  the  general  improvement  as  an  administrator  of  some 
branch  of  public  affairs,  there  would  then  be  a  chance  of  two. 
Mental  superiority  of  an}^  kind  is  at  present  everywhere  so  much 
below  the  demand ;  there  is  such  a  deficiency  of  persons  com- 
petent to  do  excellently  anything  which  it  requires  any  consid- 
erable amount  of  ability  to  do ;  that  the  loss  to  the  world  by 
refusing  to  make  use  of  one-half  of  the  whole  quantity  of  talent 
it  possesses  is  extremely  serious.  To  Mill's  mind,  however,  the 
primary  and  paramount  argum.ent  for  woman  suffrage  is  that, 
after  the  concession  has  been  made,  the  most  universal  and 
pervading  of  all  hum^n  relations  will  be  regulated  by  justice  in- 
stead of  injustice.  To  any  one  who  attaches  a  moral  meaning 
to  words,  it  would  seem  hardly  possible,  by  any  explanation  or 
illustration,  to  place  in  a  stronger  light  than  it  is  placed  by  the 
bare  statement  the  vast  amount  of  this  gain  to  human  nature. 
All  the  selfish  propensities,  the  self -worship,  the  unjust  self-pref- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  173 

erence  which  exist  among  mankind  have  their  source  and  root 
in.  and  derive  their  principal  nourish.ntnt  from,  the  present 
constitution  of  the  relation  between  men  and  women.  AD  that 
education  and  civilization  are  doing  to  efface  the  influences  on 
character  of  the  law  of  force,  and  to  replace  them  by  those 
of  justice,  remains  merely  on  the  surface  as  long  as  the  citadel 
of  the  enemy  is  not  attacked.  So  long  as  the  right  of  the 
strong  to  power  over  the  weak  rules  in  the  very  heart  of  human 
society,  the  attempt  to  make  the  equal  right  of  the  weak  the 
principle  of  that  society's  outward  actions  will  always  be  an 
uphill  struggle. 


Ladies'  Home  Journal.  27:  21-2.  January,  1910. 

Why  Women  Should  Vote.     Jane  Addams. 

For  many  generations  it  has  been  believed  that  woman's 
place  is  within  the  walls  of  her  own  home,  and  it  is  indeed  im- 
possible to  imagine  the  time  when  her  duty  there  shall  be  ended 
or  to  forecast  any  social  change  which  shall  release  her  from 
that  paramount  obligation. 

This  paper  is  an  attempt  to  show  that  many  women  to-day 
are  failing  to  discharge  their  duties  to  their  own  households 
properly  simply  because  they  do  not  perceive  that  as  society 
grows  more  complicated  it  is  necessary  that  woman  shall  ex- 
tend her  sense  of  responsibility  to  many  things  outside  of  her 
own  home  if  she  would  continue  to  preserve  the  home  in  its 
entirety.  One  could  illustrate  in  many  ways.  A  woman's  sim- 
plest duty,  one  would  say,  is  to  keep  her  house  clean  and 
wholesome  and  to  feed  her  children  properly.  Yet  if  she  lives 
in  a  tenement  house,  as  so  many  of  my  neighbors  do,  she  can- 
not fulfill  these  simple  obligations  by  her  own  efforts  because 
she  is  utterly  dependent  upon  the  city  administration  for  the 
conditions  which  render  decent  living  possible.  Her  basement 
will  not  be  dry,  h*er  stairways  will  not  be  fireproof,  her  house 
will  not  be  provided  with  sufficient  windows  to  give  light  and 
air,  nor  will  it  be  equipped  with  sanitary  plumbing,  unless  the 
Public  works  department  sends  inspectors  who  constantly  in- 
sist that  these  elementary  decencies  be  provided.     Women  who 


174  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

live  in  the  country  sweep  their  own  dooryards  and  may  either 
feed  the  refuse  of  the  table  to  a  flock  of  chickens  or  allow,  it 
innocently  to  decay  in  the  open  air  and  sunshine.  In  a  crowded 
city  quarter,  however,  if  the  street  is  not  cleaned  by  the  city 
authorities  no  amount  of  private  sweeping  will  keep  the  tene- 
ment free  from  grime;  if  the  garbage  is  not  properly  collected 
^nd  destroyed  a  tenement-house  mother  may  see  her  children 
sicken  and  die  of  diseases  from  which  she  alone  is  powerless  to 
shield  them,  although  her  tenderness  and  devotion  are  unbound- 
ed. She  cannot  even  secure  untainted  meat  for  her  household, 
she  cannot  provide  fresh  fruit,  unless  the  meat  has  been  in- 
spected by  city  officials,  and  the  decayed  fruit,  which  is  so  often 
placed  upon  sale  in  the  tenement  districts,  has  been  destroyed 
in  the  interests  of  public  health.  In  short,  if  woman  would 
keep  on  with  her  old  business  of  caring  for  her  house  and  rear- 
ing her  children  she  will  have  to  have  some  conscience  in  re- 
gard to  public  affairs  lying  quite  outside  of  her  immediate  house- 
hold. The  individual  conscience  and  devotion  are  no  longer 
effective. 

Chicago  one  spring  had  a  spreading  contagion  of  scarlet 
fever  just  at  the  time  that  the  school  nurses  had  been  discon- 
tinued because  business  men  had  pronounced  them  too  expensive. 
If  the  women  who  sent  their  children  to  the  schools  had  been 
sufficiently  public-spirited  and  had  been  provided  with  an  im- 
plement through  v/hich  to  express  that  pubHc  spirit  they  would 
have  insisted  that  the  schools  be  supplied  with  nurses  in  order 
that  their  own  children  might  be  protected  from  contagion. 
In  other  words,  if  women  would  effectively  continue  their  old 
avocations  they  must  take  part  in  the  slow  upbuilding  of  that 
code  of  legislation  which  is  alone  sufficient  to  protect  the  home 
from  the  dangers  incident  to  modern  life.  One  might  instance 
the  many  deaths  of  children  from  contagious  diseases  the  germs 
of  which  had  been  carried  in  tailored  clothing.  Country  doctors 
testify  as  to  the  outbreak  of  scarlet  fever  in  remote  neighbor- 
hoods each  autumn,  after  the  children  have  "begun  to  wear  the 
winter  overcoats  and  cloaks  which  have  been  sent  from  in- 
fected city  sweatshops.  That  their  mothers  mend  their  stock- 
ings and  guard  them  from  "taking  cold"  is  not  a  sufficient  pro- 
tection when  the  tailoring  of  the  familv  is  done  in  the  distant 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  175 


city  under  conditions  which  the  mother  cannot  possibly  control. 
The  sanitary  regulation  of  sweatshops  by  city  officials  is  all 
that  can  be  depended  upon  to  prevent  such  needless  destruction. 
Who  shall  say  that  women  are  not  concerned  in  the  enact- 
ment and  enforcement  of  such  legislation  if  they  would  preserve 
their  homes? 

Even  women  who  take  no  part  in  public  affairs  in  order 
that  they  may  give  themselves  entirely  to  their  own  families, 
sometimes  going  so  far  as  to  despise  those  other  women  who 
are  endeavoring  to  secure  protective  legislation,  may  illustrate 
this  point.  The  Hull-house  neighborhood  was  at  one  time  suf- 
fering from  a  typhoid  epidemic.  A  careful  investigation  was 
made  by  which  we  were  able  to  establish  a  very  close  connec- 
tion between  the  typhoid  and  a  mode  of  plumbing  which  made 
it  most  probable  that  the  infection  had  been  carried  by  flies. 
Among  the  people  who  had  been  exposed  to  the  infection  was  a 
widow  who  had  Hved  in  the  ward  for  a  number  of  years,  in  a 
comfortable  little  house  which  she  owned.  Although  the  Ital- 
ian immigrants  were  closing  in  all  around  her  she  was  not  will- 
ing to  sell  her  property  and  to  move  away  until  she  had  fin- 
ished the  education  of  her  children.  In  the  mean  time  she 
held  herself  quite  aloof  from  her  Italian  neighbors  and  could 
never  be  drawn  into  any  of  the  public  efforts  to  protect  them 
by  securing  a  better  code  of  tenement-house  sanitation.  Her 
two  daughters  were  sent  to  an  Eastern  college ;  one  June,  when 
one  of  them  had  graduated  and  the  other  still  had  two  years 
before  she  took  the  degree,  they  came  to  the  spotless  little 
house  and  to  their  self-sacrificing  mother  for  the  summer's  holi- 
day. They  both  fell  ill,  not  because  their  own  home  was  not 
clean,  not  because  their  mother  was  not  devoted,  but  because 
next  door  to  them  and  also  in  the  rear  were  wretched  tenements, 
and  because  their  mother's  utmost  efforts  could  not  keep  the 
infection  out  of  her  own  house.  One  daughter  died  and  one 
recovered  but  was  an  invahd  for  two  years  following.  This 
is,  perhaps,  a  fair  illustration  of  the  futility  of  the  individual 
conscience  when  woman  insists  upon  isolating  her  family  from 
the  rest  of  the  community  and  its  interests.  The  result  is  sure 
to  be  a  pitiful   failure. 

One  of  the  interesting  experiences  in  the  Chicago  campaign 


176  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

for  inducing  the  members  of  the  Charter  convention  to  recom- 
mend municipal  franchise  for  women  in  the  provisions  of  the 
new  charter  was  the  vmexpected  enthusiasm  and  help  which 
came  from  large  groups  of  foreign-born  women.  The  Scandi- 
navian women  represented  in  man}/  Lutheran  church  societies 
said  quite  simply  that  in  the  old  country  they  had  had  the 
municipal  franchise  upon  the  same  basis  as  men  since  the  sev- 
enteenth century;  all  the  women  formerly  living  under  the 
British  government,  in  England,  Australia  or  Canada,  pointed 
out  that  Chicago  women  were  asking  now  for  what  the  British 
women  had  long  had.  But  the  most  unexpected  response  came 
from  the  foreign  colonies  in  which  women  had  never  heard  such 
problems  discussed  and  took  the  prospect  of  the  municipal 
ballot  as  a  simple  device — which  it  is — to  aid  them  in  their 
daily  struggle  with  adverse  city  conditions.  The  Italian  women 
said  that  the  men  engaged  in  railroad  construction  were  away 
all  summer  and  did  not  know  anything  about  their  household 
difficulties.  Some  of  them  came  to  Hull-House  one  day  to 
talk  over  the  possibility  of  a  public  wash-house.  They  do 
not  like  to  wash  in  their  own  tenements ;  they  have  never  seen 
a  washing-tub  until  they  came  to  America,  and  find  it  very  diffi- 
cult to  use  it  in  the  restricted  space  of  their  little  kitchens  and 
to  hang  the  clothes  within  the  house  to  dry.  They  say  that  in 
the  Italian  villages  the  women  all  go  to  the  streams  together ; 
in  the  town  they  go  to  the  public  wash-house ;  and  washing, 
instead  of  being  lonely  and  disagreeable,  is  made  pleasant  by 
cheerful  conversation.  It  is  asking  a  great  deal  of  these  wom- 
en to  change  suddenly  all  their  habits  of  living,  and  their  con- 
tention that  the  tenement-house  kitchen  is  too  small  for  laun- 
dry-work is  well  taken.  If  women  in  Chicago  knew  the  needs 
of  the  Italian  colony  they  would  realize  that  any  change  bring- 
ing cleanliness  and  fresh  clothing  into  the  Italian  household 
would  be  a  very  sensible  and  hygienic  measure.  It  is,  perhaps, 
asking  a  great  deal  that  the  members  of  the  city  council  should 
understand  this,  but  surely  a  comprehension  of  the  needs  of 
these  women  and  efforts  toward  ameliorating  their  lot  might 
be  regarded  as  matters  of  municipal  obligation  on  the  part  of 
voting  women. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  Jewish  women  in  their  desire 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  177 

for  covered  markets  which  have  always  been  a  municipal  pro- 
vision in  Russia  and  Poland.  The  vegetables  piled  high  upon  the 
wagons  standing  in  the  open  markets  of  Chicago  become  covered 
with  dust  and  soot.  It  seems  to  these  women  a  violation  of  the 
most  rudimentary  decencies  and  they  sometimes  say  quite  sim- 
ply: "If  women  had  anything  to  say  about  it  they  would  change 
all  that." 

If  women  follow  only  the  lines  of  their  traditional  activ- 
ities here  are  certain  primary  duties  which  belong  to  even  the 
most  conservative  women,  and  which  no  one  woman  or  group  of 
women  can  adequately  discharge  unless  they  join  the  more  gen- 
eral movements  looking  toward  social  amelioration  through  le- 
gal enactment. 

The  first  of  these,  of  which  this  article  has  already  treated, 
is  woman's  responsibility  for  the  members  of  her  own  household 
that  they  may  be  properly  fed  and  clothed  and  surrounded  by 
hygienic  conditions.  The  second  is  a  responsibility  for  the 
education  of  children :  (a)  that  they  may  be  provided  with  good 
schools ;  (b)  that  they  may  be  kept  free  from  vicious  influences 
on  the  street;  (c)  that  when  working  they  may  be  protected  by 
adequate  child-labor  legislation. 

(a)  The  duty  of  woman  toward  the  schools  which  her  chil- 
dren attend  is  so  obvious  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  upon 
it.  But  even  this  smple  obligation  cannot  be  effectively  carried 
out  without  some  form  of  social  organization  as  the  mothers' 
school  clubs  and  mothers'  congresses  testify,  and  to  which  the 
most  conservative  women  belong  because  they  feel  the  need  of 
wider  reading  and  discussion  concerning  the  many  problems  of 
childhood.  It  is,  therefore,  perhaps  natural  that  the  public  should 
have  beeii  more  willing  to  accord  a  vote  to  women  in  school 
matters  than  in  any  other,  and  yet  women  have  never  been  mem- 
bers of  a  board  of  education  in  sufficient  numbers  to  influence 
largely  actual  school  curriculi.  If  they  had  been  kindergartens, 
domestic  science  courses  and  school  play-grounds  would  be  far 
more  numerous  than  they  are.  More  than  one  woman  has  been 
convinced  of  the  need  of  the  ballot  by  the  futility  of  her  efforts 
in  persuading  a  business  man  that  young  children  need  nurture 
in  something  besides  the  three  R's.  Perhaps,  too,  only  women 
realize  the  influence  which  the  school  might  exert  upon  the  home 


178  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

if  a  proper  adaptation  to  actual  needs  were  considered.  An 
Italian  girl  who  has  had  lessons  in  cooking  at  the  public  school 
will  help  her  mother  to  connect  the  entire  family  with  American 
food  and  household  habits.  That  the  mother  has  never  baked 
bread  in  Italy — only  mixed  it  in  her  own  house  and  then  taken 
it  out  to  the  village  oven — makes  it  all  the  more  necessary 
that  her  daughter  should  understand  the  complications  of  a 
cooking  stove.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  girl  who  learns 
to  sew  in  the  public  school,  and  more  than  anything  else,  per- 
haps of  the  girl  who  receives  the  first  simple  instruction  in  the 
care  of  little  children,  that  skillful  care  which  every  tenement- 
house  baby  requires  if  he  is  to  be  pulled  tlirough  his  second 
summer.  The  only  time,  to  my  knowledge,  that  lessons  in  the 
care  of  children  were  in  the  public  schools  of  Chicago  was 
one  summer  when  the  vacation  schools  were  being  managed  by 
a  volunteer  body  of  women.  The  instruction  was  eagerly  re- 
ceived by  the  Italian  girls,  v/ha  had  been  ''little  mothers"  to 
younger  children  ever  since  they  could  remember. 

As  a  result  of  this  teaching  I  recall  a  young  girl  who  care- 
fully explained  to  her  Italian  mother  that  the  reason  the  babies 
in  Italy  were  so  healthy  and  the  babies  in  Chicago  were  so  sick- 
ly was  not,  as  her  mother  had  always  firmly  insisted,  because 
her  babies  in  Italy  had  goat's  milk  and  her  babies  in  America 
had  cow's  milk,  but  because  the  milk  in  Italy  was  clean  and  the 
milk  in  Chicago  was  dirty.  She  said  that  when  you  milked 
your  own  goat  before  the  door  you  knew  that  the  milk  was 
clean,  but  when  you  bought  milk  from  the  grocery  store  after 
it  had  been  carried  for  many  miles  in  the  country  "you  couldn't 
tell  whether  or  not  it  was  fit  for  the  baby  to  drink  until  the 
men  from  the  City  Hall,  who  had  watched  it  all  the  way,  said 
it  was  all  right."  She  also  informed  her  mother  that  the  "City 
Hall  wanted  to  fix  up  the  milk  so  that  it  couldn't  make  the  baby 
sick,  but  that  they  hadn't  quite  enough  votes  for  it  yet."  The 
Italian  mother  believed  what  her  child  had  been  taught  in  the 
big  school;  it  seemed  to  her  quite  as  natural  that  the  city  should 
be  concerned  in  providing  pure  milk  for  her  younger  children 
as  that  it  should  provide  big  schools  and  teachers  for  her  older 
children.  She  reached  this  na'ive  conclusion  because  she  had 
never  heard   those   arguments   which   make    it   seem   reasonable 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  179 

that  a  woman  should  be  given  the  school  franchise,  but  no  oth- 
er. 

(b)  But  women  are  also  beginning  to  realize  that  children 
need  attention  outside  of  school  hours ;  that  much  of  the  petty 
vice  in  cities  is  merely  the  love  of  pleasure  gone  wrong,  the 
overrestrained  boy  or  girl  seeking  improper  recreation  and  ex- 
citement. It  is  obvious  that  a  little  study  of  the  needs  of  chil- 
dren, a  sympathetic  understanding  of  the  conditions  under  which 
they  go  astray,  might  save  hundreds  of  them.  Women  traai- 
tionally  have  had  an  opportunity  to  observe  the  plays  of  chil- 
dren and  the  needs  of  youth,  and  yet  in  Chicago,  at  least,  they 
had  done  singularly  little  in  this  vexed  problem  of  juvenile  de- 
linquency until  they  helped  to  inaugurate  the  Juvenile  Court 
movement  a  dozen  years  ago.  The  Juvenile  Court  committee, 
made  up  largely  of  women,  paid  the  salaries  of  the  probation 
officers  connected  with  the  court  for  the  first  six  years  of  its 
existence,  and  after  the  salaries  were  cared  for  by  the  county 
the  same  organization  turned  itself  into  a  Juvenile  Protective 
League,  and  through  a  score  of  paid  officers  are  doing  valiant 
service  in  minimizing  some  of  the  dangers  of  city  life  which 
boys  and  girls  encounter. 

The  Protective  League,  however,  was  not  formed  until  the 
women  had  had  a  civic  training  through  their  semi-official  con- 
nection with  the  Juvenile  Court.  This  is,  perhaps,  an  illustra- 
tion of  our  inability  to  see  the  duty  "next  to  hand"  until  we 
have  become  alert  through  our  knowledge  of  conditions  in  con- 
nection with  the  larger  duties.  We  would  all  agree  that  social 
amelioration  must  come  about  through  the  efforts  of  many  peo- 
ple who  are  moved  thereto  by  the  compunction  and  stirring  of 
the  individual  conscience,  but  we  are  only  beginning  to  un- 
derstand that  the  individual  conscience  will  respond  to  the  spe- 
cial challenge  largely  proportional  as  the  individual  is  able  to 
see  the  social  conditions  because  he  has  felt  responsible  for  their 
improvement.  Because  this  body  of  women  assumed  a  public 
resonsibility  they  have  seen  to  it  that  every  series  of  pictures 
displayed  m  the  five-cent  theater  is  subjected  to  a  careful  censor- 
ship before  it  is  produced,  and  those  series  suggesting  obscenity 
and  criminality  have  been  practically  eliminated.  The  police 
department  has  performed  this  and  many  other  duties  to  which 


i8o  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

it  was  oblivious  before  simply  because  these  women  have  made 
it  realize  that  it  is  necessary  to  protect  and  purify  those  places 
of  amusement  which  are  crowded  with  young  people  every,  night. 
This  is  but  the  negative  side  of  the  polic}^  pursued  by  the  public 
ciuthorities  in  the  fifteen  small  parks  of  Chicago,  each  of  which 
is  provided  with  halls  in  which  young  people  may  meet  nightly 
for  social  gatherings  and  dances.  The  more  extensively  the 
modern  city  endeavors  on  the  one  hand  to  control  and  on  the 
other  hand  to  provide  recreational  facilities  for  its  young  peo- 
ple the  more  necessary  it  is  that  women  should  assist  in  their 
direction  and  extension.  After  all,  a  care  for  wholesome  and 
innocent  amusement  is  what  women  have  for  many  years  as- 
sumed. When  the  reaction  comes  on  the  part  of  taxpayers 
women's  votes  may  be  necessary  to  keep  the  city  to  its  bene- 
ficent obligations  toward  its  own  young  people. 

(c)  As  the  education  of  her  children  has  been  more  and  more 
transferred  to  the  school,  so  that  even  children  four  years  old 
go  to  the  kindergarten,  the  woman  has  been  left  in  a  household 
of  constantly  narrowing  interests,  not  only  because  the  children 
are  away,  but  also  because  one  industry  after  another  is  slip- 
ping from  the  household  into  the  factory.  Ever  since  steam 
power  has  been  applied  to  the  processes  of  weaving  and  spin- 
nmg  woman's  traditional  work  has  been  carried  on  largely  out- 
side of  the  home.  The  clothing  and  household  linen  are  not 
only  spun  and  woven,  but  also  usually  sewed,  by  machinery;  the 
preparation  of  many  foods  has  also  passed  into  the  factory  and 
necessarily  a  certain  number  of  women  have  been  obliged  to 
follow  their  work  there,  although  it  is  doubtful,  in  spite  of  the 
large  number  of  factory  girls,  whether  women  now  are  doing 
as  large  a  proportion  of  the  world's  work  as  they  used  to  do 
Because  many  thousands  of  those  working  in  factories  and  shops 
are  girls  between  the  ages  of  fourteen  and  twenty-two  there  is 
a  necessity  that  older  women  should  be  interested  in  the  condi- 
tions of  industry.  The  very  fact  that  these  girls  are  not  going 
to  remain  in  industry  permanently  makes  it  more  important  that 
some  one  should  see  to  it  that  they  shall  not  be  incapacitated  for 
their  future  family  life  because  they  work  for  exhausting  hours 
and  under  insanitary  conditions. 

If  woman's  sense  of  obligation  had  enlarged  as  the  industrial 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  i8i 

conditions  changed  she  might  naturally  and  almost  imperceptibly 
have  inaugurated  the  movements  for  social  amelioration  in  the 
line  of  factory  legislation  and  shop  sanitation.  That  she  has  not 
done  so  is  doubtless  due  to  the  fact  that  her  conscience  is  slow 
to  recognize  any  obligation  outside  of  her  own  family  circle, 
and  because  she  was  so  absorbed  in  her  own  household  that  she 
failed  to  see  what  the  conditions  outside  actually  were.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  know  how  far  the  consciousness  that  she  had 
no  vote  and  could  not  change  matters  operated  in  this  direction. 
After  all, we  see  only  those  things  to  which  our  attention  has 
been  drawn,  we  feel  responsibility  for  those  things  which  are 
brought  to  us  as  matters  of  responsibility.  If  conscientious  wom- 
en were  convinced  that  it  was  a  civic  duty  to  be  informed  in 
regard  to  these  grave  industrial  affairs,  and  then  to  express  the 
conclusions  which  they  had  reached  by  depositing  a  piece  of 
paper  in  ballot-box,  one  cannot  imagine  that  they  would  shirk 
simply  because  the  action*  ran  counter  to  old  traditions. 

To  those  of  my  readers  who  would  admit  that  although 
woman  has  no  right  to  shirk  her  old  obligations,  that  all  of  these 
measures  could  be.  secured  more  easily  through  her  influence 
upon  the  men  of  her  family  than  through  the  direct  use  of  the 
ballot,  I  should  like  to  tell  a  little  story.  1  have  a  friend  m 
Chicago  who  is  the  mother  of  four  sons  and  the  grandmother 
of  twelve  grandsons  who  are  voters.  She  is  a  woman  of  wealth, 
of  secured  social  position,  of  sterling  character  and  clear  intel- 
ligence, and  may,  therefore,  quite  fairly  be  cited  as  a  "woman 
of  influence."  Upon  one  of  her  recent  birthdays,  when  she  was 
asked  how  she  had  kept  so  young,  she  promptly  replied :  "Be- 
cause I  have  always  advocated  at  least  one  unpopular  cause." 
It  may  have  been  in  pursuance  of  this  policy  that  for  many  years 
she  has  been  an  ardent  advocate  of  free  silver,  although  her 
manufacturing  family  are  all  Republicans !  I  happened  to  call 
at  her  house  on  the  day  that  Mr.  McKinley  was  elected  presi- 
dent against  Mr.  Bryan  for  the  first  time.  I  found  my  friend 
very  much  disturbed.  She  said  somewhat  bitterly  that  she  had 
at  last  discovered  what  the  much-vaunted  influence  of  woman 
was  worth;  that  she  had  implored  each  of  her  sons  and  grand- 
sons, had  entered  into  endless  arguments  and  moral  appeals  to 
induce  one  of  them  to  represent  her  convictions  by  voting  for 


i82  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Bryan !  That,  although  sincerely  devoted  to  her,  each  one  had 
assured  her  that  his  convictions  forced  him  to  vote  the  Repub- 
lican ticket.  She  said  that  all  she  had  been  able  to  secure  was 
the  promise  from  one  of  the  grandsons,  for  whom  she  had  an 
especial  tenderness  because  he  bore  her  husband's  name,  that 
he  would  not  vote  at  all.  He  could  not  vote  for  Bryan,  but 
out  of  respect  for  her  feeling  he  would  refrain  from  voting  for 
McKinley.  My  friend  said  that  for  many  years  she  had  suspect- 
ed that  women  could  influence  men  only  in  regard  to  those 
things  in  which  men  were  not  deeply  concerned,  but  when  it 
came  to  persuading  a  man  to  a  woman's  view  in  affairs  of  poli- 
tics or  business  it  was  absolutely  useless.  I  contended  that  a 
woman  had  no  right  to  persuade  a  man  to  vote  against  his  own 
convictions ;  that  I  respected  the  men  of  her  family  for  follow- 
ing their  own  judgment  regardless  of  the  appeal  which  the 
honored  head  .of  the  house  had  made  to  their  chivalric  devo- 
tion. To  this  she  replied  that  she  would  agree  with  that  point  of 
view  when  a  woman  had  the  same  opportunity  as  a  man  to  reg- 
ister her  convictions  by  vote.  I  believed  then  as  I  do  now,  that 
nothing  is  gained  when  independence  of  judgment  is  assailed  by 
^'influence,"  sentimental  or  otherwise,  and  that  we  test  advancing 
civilization  somewhat  by  our  power  to  respect  differences  and 
by  our  tolerance  of  another's  honest  conviction. 

This  is,  perhaps,  the  attitude  of  many  busy  women  who  would 
be  glad  to  use  the  ballot  to  further  public  measures  in  which 
they  are  interested  and  for  which  they  have  been  working  for 
years.  It  offends  the  taste  of  such  a  woman  to  be  obliged  to  use 
indirect  ''influence"  v/hen  she  is  accustomed  to  well-bred,  open 
action  in  other  affairs,  and  she  very  much  resents  the  time  spent 
in  persuading  a  voter  to  take  her  point  of  view,  and  possibly 
to  give  up  his  own,  quite  as  honest  and  valuable  as  hers,  al- 
though different  because  resulting  from  a  totally  different  ex- 
perience. Public-spirited  women  who  wish  to  use  the  ballot, 
as  I  know  them,  do  not  wish  to  do  the  work  of  men  nor  to  tak? 
over  men's  affairs.  They  simply  want  an  opportunity  to  do 
their  own  work  and  to  take  care  of  those  affairs  which  naturally 
and  historically  belong  to  women,  but  which  are  constantly  be- 
ing overlooked   and   slighted   in   our  political   institutions. 

In  a  complex  community  like  the  modern  city  all  points  of 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  183 

view  need  to  be  represented ;  the  resultants  of  diverse  experi- 
ences need  to  be  pooled  if  the  community  would  make  for  sane 
and  balanced  progress.  If  it  would  meet  fairly  each  problem. 
as  it  arises,  whether  it  be  connected  with  a  freight  tunnel  having 
to  do  largely  with  business  men,  or  with  the  increasing  death 
rate  among  children  under  five  years  of  age,  a  problem  in  which 
women-  are  vitally  concerned,  or  with  the  question  of  more  ade- 
quate street-car  transfers,  in  which  both  men  and  women  might 
be  said  to  be  equally  interested,  it  must  not  ignore  the  judg- 
ments of  its  entire  adult  population. 

To  turn  the  administration  of  our  civic  affairs  wholly  over 
to  men  may  mean  that  the  American  city  will  continue  to  push 
forward  in  its  commercial  and  industrial  development,  and  con- 
tinue to  lag  behind  in  those  things  which  make  a  city  healthful 
and  beautiful.  After  all,  the  woman's  traditional  function  has 
been  to  make  her  dwelling-place  both  clean  and  fair.  Is  that 
dreariness  in  city  life,  that  lack  of  domesticity  which  the  hum- 
blest farm  dwelling  presents,  due  to  a  withdrawal  of  one  of 
the  naturally  cooperating  forces?  If  women  have  in  any  sense 
been  responsible  for  the  gentler  side  of  life  which  softens  and 
blurs  some  of  its  harsher  conditions,  may  they  not  have  a  duty 
to  perform  in  our  American  cities? 

In  closing,  may  I  recapitulate  that  if  woman  would  fulfill 
her  traditional  responsibility  to  her  own  children;  if  she  would 
educate  and  protect  from  danger  factory  children  who  must  find 
their  recreation  on  the  street;  if  she  would  bring  the  cultural 
forces  to  bear  upon  our  materialistic  civilization ;  and  if  she 
would  do  it  all  with  the  dignity  and  directness  fitting  one  who 
carries  on  her  immemorial  duties,  then  she  must  bring  herself 
to  the  use  of  the  ballot — that  latest  implement  for  self-govern- 
ment. May  we  not  fairly  say  that  American  women  need  this 
implement  in  order  to  preserve  the  home? 

Lippincott's.  82:    101-4.  July,    1908. 

Woman    Suffrage   in   America.     Annie   R.    Ramsey. 

History  must  be  the  basis  of  any  prophecy  as  to  the  outcome 
of  the  demand  for  woman  suffrage,  and  in  rehearsing  the  story 
of  the  movement  one  is  amused  and  surprised  at  the  number 


i84  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

of  old  prophecies  met.  They  once  stood  like  giants  in  the  path 
and  proclaimed  themselves  as  the  reasons  against  woman's  ap- 
pearance at  the  polls,  and  as  the  dire  consequences  thereof, 
but  when  boldly  approached  most  of  these  giants  will  be  found 
to  be  tame  bugaboos  or  kindly,  harmless  old  fellows  who  have 
gone  sound  to  sleep  in  the  midst  of  the  din.  Yet  it  is  in  com- 
batting these  old  prophecies  that  we  shall  find  the  basis  for  the 
new. 

As  far  back  as  the  second  of  July,  1776,  two  days  before 
the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  state  of 
New  Jersey  changed  the  wording  of  the  enfranchisement  clause 
of  its  provincial  chart  from,  "Male  free-holders  worth  fifty 
pounds,"  to  "All  inhabitants  worth  fifty  pounds,"  thus  giving 
the  ballot  to  men  and  women  alike.  So  it  can  readily  be  seen 
that  the  inception  of  the  woman  suffrage  movement  in  this 
country  antedates  the  birth  of  the  Republic. 

It  is  true  that  in  colonial  days,  and  under  the  laws  of  the 
time,  there  were  very  few  women  worth  fifty  pounds  in  their 
individual  right,  and  these  who  were  belonged  to  the  aristocratic 
class.  As  a  consequence,  in  their  thirty-one  years  of  voting  they 
used  their  power  oftenest  in  favor  of  the  Federalist  party.  But 
democratic  principles  and  ideas  became  more  and  more  firmly 
rooted,  whereupon  the  property  qualification  grew  very  unpop- 
ular. When  in  1807  the  Democratic  party  were  victorious  at  the 
polls,  a  new  law  was  enacted,  by  which  only  white  males  whose 
names  were  on  the  list  of  state  or  county  as  having  paid  a  poll 
tax  were  allowed  to  vote,  women  and  negroes  being  disenfran- 
chised. 

Many  decades  passed  before  any  concerted  movement  was 
made  to  enfranchise  women.  In  1847,  Lucy  Stone,  a  graduate 
of  Oberlin  College,  began  the  lectures  she  gave  from  coast  to 
coast  on  the  subject  of  woman  suffrage,  and  from  1850  to  1861 
conventions  of  women,  derided,  nicknamed,  often  over-zealous, 
and  sometimes  ridiculous,  met  annually  and  ''agitated.'' 

After  the  turmoil  of  the  Civil  War  died  away,  the  issue  of 
woman  suffrage  was  revived  in  several  states,  notably  Kansas, 
but  WVoming  was  the  first  to  enfranchise  women,  in  1869.  Since 
then  Colorado,  Utah,  and  Idaho  have  followed  its  example,  the 
women  in  those  states  possessing  suffrage  at  all  elections  upon 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  185 

equal  terms  with  men.  In  addition  to  these  many  states  have 
granted  partial  suffrage  to  women. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  many  hidden  causes  were 
working  to  this  result  quite  as  surely  as  the  one  open  cause  of 
the  desire  for  justice.  It  would  take  too  long  to  recite  the 
gradual  changes  of  the  position  of  women  in  the  industrial,  busi- 
ness, and  professional  world,  or  to  follow  in  detail  the  slow  im- 
provement of  her  legal  status.  By  economic  exigencies,  by  the 
introduction  of  luxury,  by  the  invention  of  labor-saving  ma- 
chines, women  have  been  forced  forward  and  thus  made  more 
fit  and  more  free  to  enter  public  life. 

Therefore  the  army  of  suffragists  has  been  largely  recruited 
in  the  last  fifteen  years  from  the  most  intelligent  and  reflective 
part  of  the  community. 

When  such  a  stage  is  reached  in  any  movement  founded  on  a 
plea  whose  abstract  justice  is  admitted,  it  is  certain  that  the 
end  will  soon  be  attained,  and  it  is  no  particular  foresight  which 
prophesies  that  woman's  suffrage  will  eventually  be  tried.  When 
it  comes  the  years  of  ''agitation"  will  seem  to  have  been  as  the 
rush  of  an  express  train,  although  so  many  workers  have  grown 
weary  or  died  in  the  waiting  for  it. 

With  this  com.monplace  but  comprehensive  prophecy  there 
are  four  minor  forecasts  which  will  delay  the  day  and  alter  its 
tendencies  when  it  dawns,  and  the  best  way  to  present  them  is  to 
cite  the  arguments  the  Antis  have  used  for  years. 

The  first  of  these  is  that  women  will  not  vote  when  they 
get  the  ballot,  because  the  majority  of  women  do  not  wish  to 
vote.  No,  of  course  not.  Who  does  want  to  vote  just  for  the 
sake  of  voting?  But  give  a  woman  something  to  vote  about 
and  she  is  not  slow  in  doing  it.  Here  are  the  facts :  For  thirty- 
nine  years  the  proportion  of  women  of  Wyoming  who  voted 
has  consistently  increased.  This  proportion,  as  ascertained  from 
actual  inspection  of  voting  lists,  in  three  successive  elections, 
was  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  resident  women  and  eighty  per  cent, 
of  the  men.  And  instead  of  the  number  of  male  voters  falling 
off  in  consequence  of  the  voting  of  women,  the  male  vote  in- 
creased, and  far  exceeds  the  proportion  of  men  voting  in  Mas- 
sachusetts. 

Whenever  there  has  been  a  vital  issue  women  have  taken  an 


i86  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

active  part.  What  woman  does  not  wish  to  vote  against  the 
city  "improvement"  which  lessens  the  value  of  her  property,  and 
does  no  good  to  any  but  the  dishonest  politician  who  proposed 
it?  What  woman  would  not  vote  on  the  questions  of  better 
water,  better  gas,  better  sanitation,  on  the  conduct  of  the  schools, 
the  cleaning  of  the  city's  streets,  the  making  and  keeping  of  its 
laws  of  health,  and  its  government  by  honest  men? 

The  second  prophecy  is  that  once  the  poll  habit  is  formed, 
the  house  and  the  children  will  be  neglected.  Yet  it  does  not 
appear  that  a  man  neglects  his  shop  or  office  in  order  to  vote: 
why  then  should  a  woman  take  a  different  stand  in  regard  to 
her  business? — for  assuredly  home-keeping  and  child-training 
are  the  business  of  all  women  happy  enough  to  possess  a  home 
and  children. 
^.  This  second  prophecy  is  not  borne  out  by  the  women  of  states 
possessing  part  or  all  of  the  franchise.  Wyoming  women  are 
not  distinguished  for  their  poor  domestic  arrangements  and  their 
unhappy  husbands  and  children,  nor  are  those  of  the  British 
colonies  of  New  Zealand  and  Australia,  which  have  fully  en- 
franchised the  women.  Surely  it  is  only  fair  to  judge  a  princi- 
ple by  the  success  of  experiments. 
u;^  As  a  third  prophecy,  we  are  told  that  the  effect  of  the  ballot 
given  to  woman  will  be  the  degradation  of  her  character. 

Is  it  possible  that  thinking  about  politics  is  so  degrading? 
How  have  men  escaped  contamination?  Are  reading  and  dis- 
cussion upon  themes  and  schemes  of  good  government  so  per- 
nicious that  no  woman  can  approach  them  and  retire  unsoiled? 
What  we  say  among  ourselves  and  in  our  homes  might  surely 
be  said  on  a  slip  of  paper  with  as  little  harm  to  our  morals. 

Do  the  prophets  mean  that  going  to  the  polls  on  election  day 
is  not  merely  disagreeable,  but  degradirrg?  It  has  been  claimed 
that  the  coming  of  women  to  the  polls  has  improved  the  con- 
dition thereof,  and  that  now,  with  the  Australian  ballot  in  use, 
there  is  little  that  is  disagreeable  in  the  process  of  voting. 

The  prophecy  may  be  founded  on  the  fact  that  voters  are  not 
exempt  from  military  and  jury  duty.  Priests — who  do  not  even 
give  sons  to  the  state — are  practically  so  exempt;  and  doctors 
rarely  sit  on  a  jury.  And  women  to-day  follow  the  drum  as 
nurses  quite  as  faithfully  and  fearlessly  as  their  brothers,  the 
chaplain  and  the  doctor. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  187 

The  fourth  argument — perhaps  the  truest  and  most  to  be 
dreaded — is  that  when  suffrage  is  granted  to  women  the  flood- 
gates of  ignorance  and  folly  are  opened ;  that  the  vast  majority 
of  women  are  uninformed,  and  not  informable,  on  political  sub- 
jects; that  they  cannot  be  taught  to  think  both  clearly  and  large- 
ly, that  they  will  be  the  followers  of  the  most  successful  in- 
triguer and  ward  "heeler."  So  they  may,  for  a  time,  and  I 
would  respectfully  submit  that  in  these  things  they  would  close- 
ly imitate  the  men  they  know  best,  and  each  class  of  society 
would  but  enlarge  its  ranks.  Very  little  else  could  be  looked 
for  at  first  if  every  woman  lit  or  unlit  rushed  to  the  polls ;  but 
the  mass  of  women  is  being  slowly  educated.  The  subject  of 
this  education  and  uplifting  has  been  one  that  for  thirty-five 
years  has  engaged  the  energies  and  occupied  the  thought  of 
earnest  women  at  the  top  of  the  social  scale,  and  the  result  must 
tell  in  future  generations.  It  is  only  sane  to  judge  the  future 
from  the  past  when  trying  to  forecast  the  fate  of  a  movement 
which  for  more  than  three  generations  has  been  rolling  up  an 
ever-increasing  snow  ball  of   reasons  and  concessions. 

There  is  hope  in  the  fact  that  responsibility  educates.  In- 
telligent women  can  see  no  reason  why  the  vote  should  be  de- 
nied them  any  more  than  it  is  denied  intelligent  men,  because  there 
are  some  of  each  sex  who  are  unworthy  and  unfit.  Most  earnest 
thinkers,  to-day,  believe  in  an  educational  qualification,  and  this 
applied  to  men  and  women  alike  would  help  the  whole  body 
politic. 

This  is  not  a  plea  but  a  prophecy,  and  I  cannot  more  forcibly 
remind  you  of  this  than  by  a  condensation  of  the  old  prophecies 
with  their  refutation  into  the  form  of  a  recapitulation. 

1.  Woman's  suffrage  will  be  tried;  perhaps  not  soon,  but  in 
no  very  distant  time. 

2.  It  will  not  destroy  the  home,  and  woman's  work  therein. 

3.  It  will  not  degrade  woman,  or  produce  any  very  great 
change  in  her  character. 

4.  It  will  not  fail  because  of  woman's  indifference. 

5.  It  will  not  overwhelm  our  present  government  by  a  great 
tide  of  crude  and  ill-considered  opinion.  It  is  far  more  likely, 
for  a  while  at  least,  to  bring  strength  to  reform  and  iife-blood 
to  vital  issues. 


i88  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

North  American  Review.  163:  91-7.  July,   1896. 

Why  Women   Should   Have  the    Ballot.     John   Gibbon. 

I  have  been  seeking  for  some  years  a  good,  sound  reason  why 
women  should  not  vote,  and  I  have,  after  diligent  search,  found 
one,  and  only  one.  It  is  because  they  are  women.  There  is  no 
other,  so  far  as  I  have  yet  been  able  to  discover,  which  rises 
above  the  frivolous.  Various  so-called  reasons  have  been  urged, 
indeed :  women,  it  is  said,  are  weak,  foolish,  frivolous,  depend- 
ent; they  can't  fight;  they  have  other  and  more  important  duties 
to  attend  to;  they  have  all  the  rights  they  ought  to  have  now; 
they  are  protected  by  men's  votes,  and  so  forth,  but  the  real 
and  only  reason  is  that  they  are  women.  There  are  men,  and 
plenty  of  them,  against  whom  all  the  considerations  enumerated 
above,  except  that  of  sex,  can  be  urged  as  reasons  why  they 
should  not  vote ;  but  they  are  never  urged  against  them  because 
they  are  men:  that  is,  they  belong  to  that  class  which  heretofore 
has  had  the  power  to  say  who  shall  vote. 

Women  have  life,  property,  opportunities  for  pursuit  of  hap- 
piness, to  protect  just  as  men  have.  Why  should  they  not  have 
the  same  means  of  guarding  these  that  men  have?  The  only 
reason  is  that  they  had  the  bad  luck  to  come  into  the  world  as 
females,  and  man  got  "the  drop"  on  power  first. 

Protection  by  proxy  will  not  hold  for  a  moment.  In  this 
country  no  man  is  willing  to  admit  that  his  rights  can  be  pro- 
tected  by  the  vote  of  another.  No  such  doctrine  as  that  has  ever 
Deen  admitted  here,  and  men  would  laugh  it  to  scorn  even  when 
the  man  whose  right  to  be  protected  was  a  black  man  just  emerg- 
ing from  an  ignorant,  degraded  servitude.  So  well  was  the 
absurdity  of  such  a  theory  recognized  that,  for  their  protection, 
the  right  to  vote  was  placed  after  the  war  in  the  hands  of 
persons,  many  of  whom  were  but  little  above  the  brutes,  pro- 
vided always  they  were  fortunate  enough  to  have  come  into  the 
world  males. 

Man,  in  the  aggregate,  says  in  his  might  that  certain  classes 
of  persons  shall  not  vote,  and  specifies  non-citizens,  paupers,  con- 
victs, idiots,  and  women ;  and  these  classes  are  excepted  for  the 
good  of  society — all  except  the  women.  An  idot,  even,  might 
see  why  a  pauper  and  a  convict  should  not  vote,  and  if  he  is  an 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  189 

honest  idiot  he  might  have  a  glimmering  as  to  why  he  himself 
should  not  vote;  but  it  would  puzzle  him  to  tell  why  a  woman 
should  be  put  in  the  same  class  with  himself,  the  pauper,  and 
the  convict. 

Suffrage,  it  is  said,  is  not  a  right.  Perhaps  it  is  not;  but, 
then,  neither  is  life,  liberty,  or  the  pursuit  of  happiness — in  some 
places.  In  this  country,  however,  it  was  solemnly  declared  over 
a  century  ago  that  these  are  amongst  the  inalienable  rights  of 
mankind,  bestowed  upon  them  equally  by  the  Creator,  and  that, 
to  secure  them,  governments  are'  instituted  among  men,  deriving 
their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  No  such 
right  had  ever  been  more  than  dreamed  of  before  that,  and  we 
have  been  ever  since  striving  to  make  good  the  assertions  of  our 
forefathers.  We  have  succeeded,  too,  pretty  well,  considering  the 
difficulties  in  our  path,  one  of  which  was  a  fuur-years'  slaughter 
of  our  brothers  to  force  them  to  acknowledge  the  truth  of  the 
words  of  our  ancestors. 

There  are  some  things  not  yet  made  exactly  straight,  and  in 
striving  to  point  out  what  they  are,  we  are  met  at  the  very 
threshold  by  two  pertinent  enquiries:  (i)  Is  woman  a  "person"!' 
and  (2)  Is  she  governed  with  her  ^'consent"?  It  is  scarcely 
worth  while  to  offer  any  argument  on  the  first  question,  as 
probably  almost  all  will  acknowledge  that  she  is  "a  person." 
So  far  as  the  second  is  concerned  all  must  accept  it  as  true 
that  she  is  governed  with  her  consent,  just  as  the  other  members 
of  the  class  in  which  she  is  placed  by  man  are  governed  with 
their  consent,  namely,  the  non-citizen,  the  pauper,  the  convict, 
and  the  idiot. 

An  eminent  divine  recently  declared  that  the  old  maxim  that 
there  should  be  no  taxation  without  represencation  is  utterly 
inapplicable  to  this  question  of  woman  suffrage ;  but  he  failed 
to  give  any  reason,  good  or  bad,  for  his  assertion,  although  he 
attempted  to  offer  some  excuses  for  it. 

Women  who  are  taxed,  he  urged,  are  represented  by  their 
relatives,  potent  influence,  by  men's  sense  ot  justice,  chivalry, 
etc.  All  of  which  amounts  to  this :  the  paupers,  the  convicts, 
the  idiots,  and  the  aliens  are  represented  in  the  same  way,  leav- 
ing out  the  "chivalry,"  which  is  a  very  poor  representative  with 
a  great  many  people. 


190  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

All  we  have  to  do  to  set  aside  this  argument  of  "representa- 
tion by  proxy"  is  to  recall  the  very  many  women  who 'have  no 
"relatives,"  "influence,"  "sense  of  justice,"  or  "chivalry"  to 
represent  them.  They  have  to  go  without  even  this  poor  repre- 
sentation, and  thus  inequality  and  injustice  are  perpetuated.  It 
is  gratifying  to  know  that  "women's  property"  is  better  protected 
than  men's  in  one  state;  but  is  it  true  that  this  protection  is  bet- 
ter in  all  states,  or  as  good?  As  long  as  this  is  not  so,  just  so 
long  are  inequality  and  injustice  maintained  in  violation  of  our 
fundamental  law. 

A  woman  being  "a  person"  is  a  citizen  of  the  United  States 
(if  bom  or  naturalized  in  them),  by  virtue  of  the  amendments 
which  abolished  human  slavery  in  this  country ;  and  by  the  same 
amendments  every  "citizen"  is  entitled  to  all  privileges  and 
immunities  under  the  law  and  to  its  equal  protection. 

If  women  have  progressed  towards  an  approach  to  the  equal 
protection  of  the  laws,  it  has  been  due  more  to  the  progress  of 
human  affairs  in  this  century  than  to  anything  else ;  and  it  is 
possible  that  much  of  this  progress  has  been  due  to  the  influence 
of  women  in  rectifying  a  state  of  affairs  which  would  not  origi- 
nally have  existed  if  women  had  been  represented  by  their  own 
votes,  instead  of  being  represented  by  man's  "chivalry,"  etc. 
Representative  "chivalry"  may  do  very  well  for  those  fortunate 
enough  to  possess  it,  but  if  all  could  appeal  to  it  with  confidence 
and  security  there  would  no  longer  be  any  need  for  whipping- 
posts as  a  punishment  for  wife  beating.  This  progress  in  pub- 
lic sentiment  has  wiped  from  the  statute  books  of  some  of  the 
states  laws  which  were  a  disgrace  to  the  age ;  and  which  would 
never  have  been  there  could  women  have  applied  in  time  an 
ounce  of  prevention. 

Having  demonstrated,  as  I  think,  woman's  clear  right 
constitutionally  to  the  ballot,  it  may  be  well  to  note  some  of 
the  evils  which,  in  man's  imagination,  are  going  to  follow  the 
granting  of  this  right. 

To  my  mind  one  of  the  funniest  of  these  apprehensions  is  the 
possibility  of  man's  being  "jostled,"  or  woman's  being  insulted,, 
at  the  polls.  Are  men  jostled  at  the  church  door,  at  the  theatre 
entrance,  or  at  the  ticket  office?  Or  are  women  insulted  there? 
Is  there  any  m^ore   chance  of  jostling  or  insulting  at  the  polls 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  191 

[lan  at  any  of  these  places?  On  the  contrary,  are  not  the 
chances  less  at  the  polls  than  anywhere  else?  I  refer  now,  of 
course  to  this  country  alone.  How  long  would  it  take  an  Ameri- 
can public  to  discover  that  a  woman  with  temerity  enough  to 
"jostle"  a  man,  or  a  man  foolish  enough  to  insult  a  woman  there, 
was  grossly  outraging  the  highest  prerogative  of  American  citi- 
enship  ? 

All  sympathy  bestowed  upon  women  who  may  be  told  they 
must  vote,  and  all  talk  about  how  very  difficult  it  would  be  in 
this  case  "to  miake  the  horse  drink,"  are  entirely  wasted.  We 
do  not  tell  even  men  in  this  country:  "You  must  vote."  It  is 
made  their  privilege  to  exercise  the  right  of  franchise.  All  true 
Americans  then  look  upon  this  right  as  a  duty  which  they  per- 
form with  greater  or  less  conscientiousness.  Nearly  all  others 
are  drawn  to  the  polls  by  the  wiles  of  the  politician  who  needs 
the  votes,  or  by  the  wealth  of  the  rich  who  crave  office  and  in- 
fluence. It  needs  no  very  close  study  of  human  nature  to  predict 
which,  under  such  circumstances,  will  perform  most  faithfully 
the  patriotic  duty,  the  woman  or  the  man.  If  the  woman  does 
not  come  out  ahead  in  that  race,  she  will  fall  short  of  the  just 
expectations  of  mankind,  and  belie  her  past  history.  The  trouble 
with  her  now  is  that  she  does  not  clearly  see  what  her  duty 
demands.  She  occupies  the  position  of  a  child  who  does  not 
want  to  take  medicine  which  will  do  'her  good,  because  it  looks 
bad  or  tastes  bad,  and  man  is  doing  everything  in  his  power  to 
confirm  her  in  the  notion  that  her  instincts  and  prejudices  are 
well  founded.  She  does  not  know  what  a  power  for  good  this 
ballot  is.  She  has  been  so  well  taken  care  of  in  this  country 
that  she  cannot  imagine  herself  any  better  off,  and  is  perfectly 
willing  to  think  that  this  state  of  things  will  last  forever,  and 
that  no  retrogression  is  possible.  If  you  invite  attention  to  the 
fact  of  the  large  number  of  ignorant  votes  which  go  towards 
creating  the  law-making  power  under  which  she  lives,  her  only 
thought  apparently  is  the  dread  of  coming  in  contact  with  the 
dirty,  ignorant  casters  of  those  votes  when  she  may  be  called 
upon  to  go  to  the.  polls,  and  in  this  thought  she  is  industriously 
encouraged  by  political  man,  who  does  not  desire  to  increase  a 
class  of  votes  which  he  may  not  be  able  to  influence,  and  knows 
he  cannot  buy. 


192  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

What  the  result  would  be  is  not  quite  so  much  a  matter  of 
conjecture  as  the  Bishop  of  Albany  appears  to  think,  for  the 
problem  of -woman  suffrage  has  already  been  partially  solved, 
and  the  solution  is  growing  in^-strength  day  by  day,  as  the  con- 
viction becomes  forced  on  the  community  where  the  experiment 
is  in  process  of  trial,  that  the.  ballot  in  the  hands  of  woman,  so 
far  from  being  an  evil,  is  a  positive  blessing.  The  fear,  in 
those  communities,  that  a  few  thousand  votes  deposited  by  fallen 
women  can  hold  the  balance  of  power  in  an.  election  againsf  the 
many,  many  more  thousands  of  women  who  are  alive  to  the  full 
importance  of  the  franchise  privilege,  is  no  longer  felt.  Such 
fears  need  no  longer  excite  the  apprehension  of  theorists  carried 
away  by  the  ''enormous  and  awful  probability  of  a  vote  that 
might  turn  the  tide  of  an  election,  purchasable  by  the  highest 
bidder."  Let  those  who  entertain  such  apprehensions  rest  easy. 
The  man  who  should  win  his  election  by  the  purchase  of  such  a 
vote  would  be  speedily  relegated  to  the  walks '  of  private  life 
by  the  votes  of  women  whose  duty  it  would  then  be  doubly 
strong  to  cast  them.  It  is  rather  dangerous  and  illogical  to 
draw  a  conclusion  "through  an  imaginary  premise,"  and  that  is 
exactly  the  pit  I  fear  the  Bishop  of  Albany  fell  into  w*hen  he  de- 
clared it  to  be  a  fact  /'that  to  multiply  suffrage  means  to  multi- 
ply every  kind  of  vote  by  two."  Such  is  not  the  fact.  Experience 
in  woman  suffrage  does  not  show  it.  Our  knowledge  of  woman 
nature  tends  to  prove  directly  the  reverse. 

There  is,  it  may  safely  be  asserted,  no  one  question  in  which 
women  have  a  greater  interest  than  that  governing  the  sale  of 
liquor.  In  the  abuse  of  liquor  no  class  in  the  world  suffers  as. 
do  women.  Will  it  be  contended  by  any  one  conversant  with 
the  facts  that  if  woman  is  given  the  ballot  each  "kind  of  vote"" 
on  this  question  would  be  simply  multiplied  "by  two?"  Does 
not  our  knowledge  on  the  subject  lead  us  to  directly  the  opposite 
conclusion?  Some  years  ago  a  crusade  was  started  in  a  sectioii 
of  this  country  by  women,  against  liquor  selling.  They  could 
not  use  the  ballot  in  the  question,  for  they  did  not  possess  it, 
and  the  men  voters  who  (mis)  represented  them  did  not  agree 
with  them  in  their  views.  They  therefore  adopted  a  novel  plaT> 
and  proceeded  to  organize  a  campaign  of  prayer  against  the  evil. 
Did   it  succeed?     No.     Every  kind   of   ridicule  was   thrown. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  193 

scheme,  and  the  touching  appeals  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts- 
were  met  by  jeers,  hootings,'and  derision. 

Passing  through  a  Western  town  at  the  time,  I  witnessed  a 
sight  which  went  far  towards  convincing  me  of  the  justice  of 
the  cause  of  woman  suffrage.  Near  the  depot  where  the  train 
stopped  I  was  startled  at  the  sight  of  a  group  of  women  quietly 
kneeling  in  front  of  a  liquor,  saloon,  and  evidently  engaged  in 
offering  up  a  prayer  in  accordance  with  the  resolutions  they 
had  formed  to  try  and  abate  a  nuisance  which  directly  affected 
them,  their  husbands,  brothers,  and  sons. 

Perhaps  they  ought  not  to  have  been  there.  Perhaps  that 
was  not  the  way  to  bring  about  a  reform.  But  it  was  the  way 
they  had  concluded  to  try,  and  their  method  was  entitled  to  a 
decent  respect,  even  if  none  was  felt  by  their  chivalric  represent- 
atives for  the  Power  to  whom  their  appeal  was  made. 

The  scene  was  a  singular  and  novel  one :  the  group  of  silent 
kneeling  women ;  the  lounging  liquor-dealers  looking  on  placidly 
from  the  doors  and  windows,  and  the  crowd  of  men  and  boys 
gazing  on.  Suddenly  the  silence  was  broken  by  the  sound  of 
music  approaching,  and  in  a  few  moments  a  brass  band,  sur- 
rounded by  a  noisy  rabble  of  boys,  came  sweeping  round  the 
corner  of  the  street,  halting  close  to  the  kneeling  women.  The 
band  continued  to  play  a  loud,  rollicking  air,  which  drowned 
every  other  sound,  as  our  train  pulled  out  of  the  station. 

The  band,  I  presume,  had  a  right  to  be  in  the  street.  It  had 
a  right   also   to   play 

"'We'll  never  get  drunk  any  more," 
or  any  other  roistering  tune  its  leader  chose,  but  the  outrage 
was  none  the  less  a  great  one,  and  one  which  never  could  or 
would  have  been  perpetrated  if  these  kneeling  women  and  their 
sisters  had  possessed  the  right  of  franchise.  Surely  it  will  not 
be  claimed  by  anybody  that  this  is  a  case  where  chivalric  repre- 
sentation would  be  of  any  service,  or  where,  if  the  ballot  were 
given  to  women,  the  prohibition  or  temperance  vote  would  be 
simply  multiplied  "by  two." 

In  this  matter  of  the  franchise,  if  justice  is  the  aim,  why 
should  we  bestow  the  ballot  upon  ignorance  and  deny  it  to  intelli- 
gence? Why  bestow  it  upon  one  who,  in  this  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, proclaims,  in  the  face  of  all  evidence  to  the  contrary,  that 


194  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

.the  sun  revolves  about  the  earth,  because  he  is  a  man,  and  re- 
fuse it  to  one  whose  burning  words  in  the  cause  of  freedom 
have  been  translated  into  every  living  language  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  because  she  is  a  woman  f 

When  the  war  closed,  many  millions  of  men  and  women  were 
made  free.  In  order  to  enable  them  to  protect  their  freedom,  it 
was  deemed  necessary  to  place  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  the 
free-men.  It  did  not  apparently  matter  so  much  about  the 
women ;  because,  it  is  presumed,  it  was  thought  they  could  pro- 
tect themselves  or  could  lean  upon  the  chivalry  of  the  men. 
With  all  the  power  of  the  United  States  to  back  up  the  govern- 
ment, the  black  man  had  still  for  his  protection  to  be  endowed 
with  the  ballot.  The  women  could  get  along  without  it,  because 
they  were  women.  The  only  qualifications  were  that  the  voter 
should  be  of  age — and  a  man.  It  would  have  been  well  to  add 
another  qualification — that  he  should  be  able  to  read  and  write. 

The  next  time  we  extend  the  suffrage  it  is  to  be  hoped  we 
will  not  repeat  the  same  mistake,  but  bestow  on  women  who  can 
read  and  write  the  right  to  cast  a  ballot.  Once  in  possession  of 
the  franchise,  it  would  be  strange,  indeed,  if  she  did  not  make  a 
better  use  of  it  than  ignorance  and  degradation  have  ever  suc- 
ceeded in  doing. 

That  the  day  for  the  enfranchisement  of  women  in  this  coun- 
try is  coming  cannot  be  doubted  by  any  one  capable  of  reading 
the  very  apparent  signs  which  have  been  shown  for  some  years 
past.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  of  these  signs  is  the  desperate 
struggle  those  opposed  to  woman  suffrage  are  making  to  prevent 
its  accompHshment.  Desperate  struggles  are  not  made  against 
attacks  Jess  formidable  and  persistent  than  those  which  have  been 
waged  so  long  in  favor  of  placing  woman  on  the  same  legal 
level  with  man,  by  putting  in  her  hand  the  only  weapon  com- 
petent for  her  protection.  These  attacks  in  favor  of  the  right  of 
franchise  have  been  varied  in  their  success,  but  as  a  whole  the 
advance  has  been  marked  and  such  as  to  excite  the  apprension  of 
the  opponents  of  the  measure,  who  are  driven  to  forecast  all 
sorts  of  imaginary  evils  as  sure  to  follow  the  inauguration  of 
this  new  and  "untried"  system  of  voting. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  195 

North  American  Review.  91:  75-86.  January,  1910. 

Appeal  of  Politics  to  Woman.    Rosamond  Lee  Sutherland. 

Why  men,  however  ignorant  or  feeble-minded,  just  because 
they  are  men,  should  be  credited  with  exclusively  possessing  a 
Heaven-bestowed  ability  of  governing,  to  which  women,  what- 
ever their  training  or  mentality,  may  never  aspire,  must  forever 
remain  one  of  the  unexplained  mysteries.  That  even  men  are 
not  all  qualilied  for  the  ballot  or  entirely  beyond  criticism  in  its 
use  might  be  suspected  by  the  unregenerate  from  a  perusal  of 
the  newspapers,  say,  at  the  time  of  the  recent  election  in  New 
York  city,  or  any  other  large  city,  for  that  matter.  When  the 
ballot  shall  be  given  to  women — as  it  is  sure  to  be  sooner  or 
later— is  it  thinkable  that  any  of  them  will  make  a  worse  use 
of  it  than  some  men  are  now  doing?  On  the  other  hand,  is  it 
not  quite  possible,  indeed,  is  it  not  probable,  that  there  will  be 
an  improvement? 

It  has  been  argued  adversely  that  to  give  the  ballot  to 
women  would  but  double  the  vote  without  effecting  the  result, 
as  most  women  would  follow  the  party  convictions  of  father  or 
husband,  but  if  danger  of  doubling  the  vote  through  a  tendency 
to  follow  a  husband's  or  father's  footsteps  is  a  valid  objection  to 
giving  the  franchise  to  women,  then  as  a  general  proposition  a 
man's  sons  shou-ld  not  be  given  a  vote  for  the  same  reason. 
Our  politics,  as  well  as  our  religion  are,  after  all,  largely  mat- 
ters of  inheritance  and  environment,  and  if  the  objection  is 
good  there  should  be  but  one  voter  in  the  family — the  head  of 
the  household.  If  death  has  removed  the  father,  for  example, 
the  mother  is,  or  should  be,  the  head  of  the  bouse  and  the 
property-owner.  Why  should  she  not  then  be  the  one  to  cast 
the  vote?  It  might  really  be  a  better  plan  than  the  present  sys- 
tem imder  which  large  property  interests  must  often  go  wholly 
unrepresented,  except  on  the  tax  list,  until  a  son  becomes  of 
age. 


196  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Outlook.  82:  622.  March  17,  1906. 

Child  Labor  and  Woman  Suffrage.     Florence  Kelly. 

Having  noted  with  interest  the  use  which  The  Outlook 
makes  in  its  issue  of  February  24  (p.  382)  of  a  portion  of  my 
report  as  Chairman  of  the  Industrial  Committee  of  the  Na- 
tional American  Woman  Suffrage  Association,  presented  to  the 
recent  convention  at  Baltimore,  it  occurs  to  me  that  you  may 
be  disposed  to  give  space  for  my  interpretation  of  the  facts 
cited. 

I  am  convinced  that  the  enfranchisement  of  women  is  in- 
dispensable to  the  solution  of  the  child  labor  problem,  and  I 
cited  the  conditions  existing  in  Maryland,  in  New  York,  and  else- 
where, in  support  of  this  view.  In  Maryland,  where  children 
work  all  night  as  messengers  and  telegraph  boys,  and  in  glass- 
works, while  men  and  women  sleep,  women  have  never  voted, 
and  have  made  but  limited  use  of  the  right  to  petition  which 
they  possess.  The  children  of  Maryland  are  suffering  from 
this  failure  of  the  women  of  Maryland  to  protect  them. 

In  Georgia,  where  no  protection  is  afforded  to  working  chil- 
dren, little  girls  work  in  cotton-mills  all  night  at  the  age  of 
six,  seven,  and  eight  years.  In  that  state  women  have  used 
their  right  of  petition  five  years  on  behalf  of  the  working  chil- 
dren, and  have  achieved  nothing  for  their  protection.  Women  in 
Georgia  have  no  vote  on  any  subject. 

In  Illinois  women  have  used  the  right  of  petition  with  in- 
creasing vigilance  and  energy  for  more  than  a  generation.  There, 
children  do  not  work  at  night,  though  the  largest  glass-bottle 
works  in  the  world  are  at  Alton,  Illinois,  and  the  messenger 
service  of  Chicago  is  second  only  to  that  of  New  York  city. 
The  effort  for  the  protection  of  the  children  in  industry  in 
Illinois  is,  however,  a  ceaseless,  wearying  struggle.  Only  last 
year,  for  instance,  the  appropriation  for  the  state  factory  in- 
spectors' expenses  was  cut  in  half,  and  the  present  energetic 
officer  was  kept  in  office  only  by  long-continued  protest  of  wom- 
en's organizations  against  his  removal. 

The  amount  of  exertion  required  of  the  disfranchised  women 
of  Illinois  for  the  protection  of  the  working  children  alone  is 
greater  than  that  required  of  the  voting  women  of  Colorado 
for  the  performance  of  all  their  political  duties. 


RSITY  .^ 

'^'  ./ 

^        WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  197 

In  the  four  states  in  which  women  vote  on  all  subjects,  child 
labor  and  ilHteracy  have  ceased  to  be  problems.  Nowhere  in 
the  industrial  world  are  children  so  effectively  safeguarded  in 
life,  Umb,  health,  education,  and  morals  as  in  Denver,  where 
mothers  and  teachers  unite  to  keep  in  office  the  justly  famous 
Judge  Lindsey  of  the  juvenile  court,  overcoming  (with  the 
help  of  a  minority  of  politically  independent  fathers)  the  united 
efforts  of  the  Republican  and  the  Democratic  bosses  against 
them. 

In  contrast  with  the  good  fortune  of  the  children  of  Denver 
is  the  plight  of  the  half-million  illiterate  children  in  the  thirteen 
southern  states  in  which  women  have  no  vote  and  make  slight 
use  (if  any)  of  the  right  of  petition. 

In  New  York  city,  also,  where  women  have  no  vote,  the 
young  children  pay  the  penalty  of  the  disfranchisement  of  their 
mothers  and  teachers,  as  is  shown  by  the  facts  cited  by  The 
Outlook  (February  24,  p.  283). 

It  is  largely  because  these  facts  and  many  others  like  them 
have  come  to  my  attention  that  I  am  serving  as  Chairman  of 
the  Industrial  Committee  of  the  National  American  Woman 
Suffrage  Association. 


Public.  11:  205-6.  May  29,  1908. 

Women  Who  Know  That  They  Need  the  Ballot.     Jane  Addams. 

A  woman  with  young  children  was  very  much  troubled  be- 
cause her  tenement  had  no  fire-escapes.  She  came  to  Hull 
House  to  ask  us  to  put  one  on.  We  advised  her  to  have  her 
husband  see  the  alderman  from  our  ward,  who  had  scattered 
promises  of  fire-escapes  right  and  left,  before  he  was  elected. 
She  answered,  "But  my  husband  is  away  at  work  for  months 
at  a  time,  and  when  he  is  at  home  he  is  not  as  much  afraid 
of  fire  as  I  am,  and  he  doe^  not  understand  as  well  as  I  do 
how  helpless  the  children  woiild  be  if  there  was  a  fire."  That 
woman  was  from  the  interior  of  Sicily,  and  there  is  no  more 
conservative  woman  anywhere  than  can  be  found  in  the  in- 
terior of  Sicily;  but  at  the  end  of  our  talk  she  said,  "Well,  if 
I  had  a  vote,  I  believe  I  should  get  a  fire-escape !"     So  women 


198  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

are  being  brought  to  wish  for  the  ballot  in  a  thousand  ways, 
not  through  any  theory,  but  as  a  result  of  their  practical  ex- 
perience. 

The  American  women  are  being  converted  in  the  same  way. 
The  Chicago  Woman's  Club  has  more  than  a  thousand  members^ 
including  many  women  of  influence.  They  have  been  very  suc- 
cessful in  getting  good  laws  passed  and  improvements  intro- 
duced. But  they  find  that  in  order  to  get  them  enforced  and 
steadily  carried  out,  they  need  the  power  that  a  vote  gives.  Take 
the  Juvenile  court.  Several  different  men  have  acted  as  judges. 
The  women  have  followed  the  proceedings  of  the  Juvenile 
court  with  close  .interest,  and  they  know  very  well  which  of 
those  judges  was  the  ablest  in  dealing  with  the  children's  cases. 
They  often  say,  "Oh,  if  we  could  only  have  Judge  So  and  So 
back  again !"     But  they  have  no  voice  in  choosing  the  judges. 

Around  us  there  are  many  factories  that  employ  young  girls 
in  running  dangerous  machinery,  making  tin  cans,  etc.  Our 
women  collected  a  long  list  of  bad  accidents,  the  loss  of  fingers- 
and  of  hands.  They  went  before  a  committee  of  the  legisla- 
ture, and  told  the  result  of  their  investigations.  The  committee 
seemed  impressed,  and  promised  to  recommend  legislation  call- 
ing for  the  use  of  guards  on  the  machines.  But  a  deputation  of 
business  men  went  to  the  legislature  after  us,  and  destroyed  all 
the  effect  of  our  hearing.  They  had  votes,  and  they  succeeded 
in  preventing  the  needed  legislation. 

Woman's  Home  Companion,  p.  20.  April,  1908. 

Working  Woman  and  the  Ballot.     Jane  Addams. 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  movement  for  woman  suffrage 
great  stress  was  laid  upon  two  points :  that  the  woman  of  proper- 
ty should  have  the  power  to  protect  her  interests,  and  that  the 
woman  of  education  could  be  entrusted  with  the  vote  with 
benefit  to  the  nation. 

We  are  beginning  to  realize  that  in  asking  for  the  ballot 
for  women,  neither  of  these  limitations  can  be  considered. 

The  woman  of  property  has,  indeed,  just  claims  to  the  suf- 
frage, that  she  may  have  a  voice  in  those  public  measures  which 
depend  upon  and  imply  an  increase  in  taxes. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  199 

The  woman  of  education,  already  a  power  for  good  in  the 
community,  needs  the  franchise,  so  that  when  she  asks  for  pure- 
food  laws,  for  the  protection  of  infant  life,  for  child-labor  re- 
strictions, she  shall  not  be  treated  as  a  mere  powerless  theorist, 
whose  requests  may  quite  reasonably  be  set  aside  in  favor  of  the 
more  urgent  demands  of  vote-endowed  electors,  who  may  de- 
termine the  term  of  office  of  the  legislators  with  whom  they 
are  pleading. 

But  if,  both  for  their  own  sakes  and  for  the  good  of  the 
republic,  women  of  property  and  women  of  education  should  be 
enfranchised,  far  more  is  the  power  of  the  ballot  needed  by  the 
working  woman,  whose  stake  in  the  country  is  represented  by  her 
life,  her  health,  her.  virtue,  and  the  safety  and  happiness  of  her 
children.  The  ballot  is  not  demanded  for  her  because  she  is 
good  or  wise,  or  because  she  will  make  no  mistakes  in  its  use. 
Neither  goodness  nor  wisdom  is  the  sole  possession  of  one  class, 
and  freedom  from  mistakes  is  the  privilege  of  none.  Working 
women  need  the  ballot  because  they  must  possess  some  control 
over  the  conditions  of  their  lives  and  those  of  their  children ; 
and,  in  this  twentieth-century  world,  the  ballot  box  offers  the 
only  channel-  through  which  they  can  give  expression  to  such 
legitimate  control. 

Nations  are  no  longer  what  they  once  were,  essentially  mili- 
tary organizations.  As  long  as  a  state  of  preparedness  against 
the  ever-present  danger  of  attack  from  outside  foes  formed  the 
only  stable  foundation  for  national  existence,  it  was  quite  fitting 
that  military  prowess  should  be  regarded  as  the  first  of  virtues, 
and  the  ability  to  bear  arms  the  test  of  citizenship.  But  the 
entire  structure  of  the  modern  world  is  built  upon  a  groundwork 
of  industry,  and  the  problems  that  concern  it  are  in  the  main 
those  of  industrial  well-being,  and  of  national,  state  and  city 
housekeeping.  - 

The  advantage  of  co-operation,  the  strength  of  union,  was 
admitted  in  war  long  before  combination  was  thought  of  in  the 
peaceful  realm  of  industry.  All  that  side  of  life  remained  an 
individual  affair,  and  the  home  an  individual  home;  and  so  they 
continued  until  quite  recent  times.  As  long  as  the  individual 
worker,  man  or  woman,  could  possess  his  own  tools,  work  his 
own  hours,  bargain  for  his  own  pay,  he  largely  controlled  his 


200 


SELECTED  ARTICLES 


own  life  and  made  a  bargain  on  terms  at  least  approximately ' 
on  an  equality  with  his  employer.  It  is  only  our  dull  wits  that 
fail  to  see  that  such  a  balance  of  power  in  bargaining  is  no 
longer  possible.  As  our  methods  of  baking  our  bread,,  of  weav- 
ing our  cloth  and  sewing  our  garments  have  altered,  so  have 
the  relations  of  employer  and  employed  altered. 

.Woman  has  always  had  a  large  share  in  the  industrial  arts, 
and  she  has  still.  But  while  woman  has  been  carried  along 
with  the  stream  of  industrial  development  from  its  source  in 
home  work  up  to  the  present  specialization  involved  in  factory 
methods,  she  has  parted  with  her  old  normal  power  of  con- 
trolling the  conditions  of  her  life  industrially  to  a  much  greater 
extent  than  has  the  working  man,  who  has  become  equipped 
with  the  ballot. 

This  has  also  been  the  case  in  her  other  sphere,  the  activities 
of  the  home.  The  modern  city  offers  an  extreme  instance  of 
the  powerlessness  of  the  most  conscientious  housekeeper,  especi- 
ally if  the  household  income  be  small,  to  decide  the  freshness  of 
the  air  her  family  shall  breathe,  the  kind  of  food  they  shall  eat 
or  the  clothes  they  shall  wear. 

In  city  life  without  proper  building  regulations,  and  proper 
inspection  of  fire  escapes,  and  the  means  of  ventilation,  the  house 
will  neither  be  a  safe  nor  a  healthy  house.  No  one  woman  can 
make  it  so,  toil  she  ever  so  hard.  The  streets  used  by  street 
railways,  automobiles,  carriages,  express  wagons,  and  an  endless 
army  of  pedestrians,  have  to  be  paved  by  engineers  and  cleaned 
by  professional  street  cleaners.  The  industrious  housekeeper's 
individual  broom,  which  was  well  enough  in  early  tim,'2s,  would 
make  but  a  poor  showing  here.  One  woman  trying  to  get  pure 
milk  for  her  children  is  helpless.  She  has  to  buy  whatever  the 
dealier,  or  the  city  or  state  who  should  control  the  dealer, 
chooses  to  say  she  shall  have ;  and  thousands  of  babies  die  every 
year  because  anxious  mothers  have  no  way  of  controlling  re- 
sponsible authorities. 

And  still  the  great  primitive  needs  of  humanity  are  the  same  t 
food,  clothing,  shelter  and  the  rearing  of  the  next  generation.. 
To  feed  and  to  clothe  the  family,  to  bear  and  to  train  children 
has  been  woman's  immemorial  business.  It  is  her  business  still,, 
and  that  it  is  sometimes  performed  with  indifference  and  is  not: 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  20T 

always  her  joy  and  her  pride  is  often  the  result  of  onr  imper- 
fect adjustment  of  these  old  functions  to  altered  conditions.  It: 
was  easy  to  see  and  to  acknowledge  the  ruler  of  the  home  in 
the  mother,  the  housekeeper,  the  bread  giver,  when  all  her^ 
duties  were  performed  within  her  own  four  walls — her  baking,, 
her  brewing,  her  weaving,  her  mixing  of  simples,  her  nursing 
of  the  sick.  Her  importance  to  the  community  was  then  self- 
evident. 

Yet  the  possessor  of  historical   insight   and  of   a   quickened 
imagination  can  recognize  to-day,  under  all  our  altered  forms  of 
living,  that  woman  is  still  performing  the  same  functions.     She- 
has  not  laid  them'  aside  because  the   forms  of  her  work  have 
altered.     The  girl  who  packs  crackers  in  the  modern  factory  is 
the  veritable  descendant  of  her  early   foremother  grinding  the 
wheat  and  roasting  the  cake  in  the  ashes.    The  tens  of  thousands 
of   girl   votaries   who   tend  the   power   sewing  machines   are  but 
the  daughters  of  ancestral  woman  whose  fingers  fashioned  rough 
garments  out  of  skins.     The  teachers  who  fill  our  public  schools ; 
almost  to  the  exclusion  of  men  are  partners  in  the  mother  work 
of  training  the  child  to  fill  his  place  in  the  world  when  his  time 
shall  come,  and,  in   a  sense,  the  modern  representatives  of  the 
savage  woman  when  she  instructed  the  baby  hunter  in  the  art  of ' 
of  setting  snares  or  sharpening  his  stone  axes. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  women  in  industry  at  the  present 
moment  afford  a  striking  example  of   maladjustment,   owing  to- 
the  factory  surroundings  of  the  work  they  are  performing,  along 
with  their  lack  of  power  to  control  those  surroundings. 

No  one  in  close  touch  with  the  lives  of  our  American  work- 
ing people  can  be  satisfied  with  existing  conditions,  either  in- 
dustrial or  domestic,  and  very  much  of  this  undesirable  state  of 
affairs  has  come  about  through  the  fact  that  industrial  and 
domestic  activities  have  so  largely  slipped  out  of  the  control  of 
woman  with  her  home-building  instincts,  her  love  for  order  and ' 
her  passion  for  details. 

The    old    division    of    labor,    which    defined    man's    work    as 
that  lying  outside  the  home  and   woman's  inside,   had  much  to  ^ 
recommend   it.    .The  trouble   with   us   is   that   we  have   enlarged -i 
the   boundaries   of   the   home   and   have   not   enlarged   the   home  - 
maker's  powers  with  it.     For  what  is  the  modern  factory,  from  > 


202  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  cotton  mill  to  the  steam  laundry,  from  the  flour  mill  to  the 
canning  works,  but  a  place  where  an  assemblage  of  workers  do 
on  a  large  scale  for  the  whole  community  what  each  individual 
housekeeper  used  to  do  on  a  small  scale  for  her  own  household? 
What  are  all  these  new  social  efforts — our  public-school 
system,  our  municipal  playgrounds,  public  baths  and  li- 
braries, our  systems  of  street  cleaning  and  transportation,  our 
hospitals  and  asylums — but  modern  eft'orts  to  meet  in  modern 
ways  the  old  needs  of  humanity?  Are  women  to  have  no  direc- 
tion in  these  matters  because  the  innate  desire  to  help  others,  to 
feed,  to  clothe,  to  nurse,  to  teach  and  to  train  the  race  has 
taken  on  new  forms? 

Of  recent  years  many  attempts  have  been  made  to  remedy 
this.  Public  officials,  dimly  feehng  that. something  was  wrong, 
have  sought  women's  co-operation,  by  consulting  with  women's 
clubs,  by  increasing  the  number  of  women  upon  the  boards  of 
charitable  institutions,  and  even  by  appointing  them  to  executive 
official  positions.  But  all  women  who  have  tried  to  work 
through  methods  so  indirect  will  acknowledge  how  wasteful  of 
energy  and  ineffective  are  such  round-about  plans,  compared 
with  the  simple  and  easy  method  of  expressing  opinion  through 
thie  vote. 

It  is  quite  by  accident  that  those  states  where  women  enjoy 
partial  or  complete  suffrage  make  also  the  best  showing  as  re- 
gards the  administration  of  schools,  the  restriction  of  child  labor, 
and  the  protection  of  young  girls?  There  is  probably  no  country 
in  the  world  where  the  interests  of  children,  taking  them  from 
every  point  of  view,  are  so  carefully  guarded  as  in  Colorado, 
where  the  women  have  full  suffrage.  Colorado  was  likewise 
the  first  state  to  raise  the  age  of  protection  for  girls  to  eighteen. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  interests  of  children  which  the  women 
of  a  community  are  especially  fitted  to  guard.  They  are  also 
the  natural  protectors  of  those  of  their  own  sex,  who,  though 
past  childhood,  are  still  young,  inexperienced  and,  in  the  in- 
dustrial contest,  utterly  helpless.  The  average  age  of  working 
womien  in  the  United  States  is  suprisingly  low,  and  the  majority 
of  them  are  much  too  young  and  inexperienced  to  secure  for 
themselves  reasonable  hours  of  work,  or  to  estimate  the  risks 
from  unguarded  machinery  or  dangerous  processes,  from  foul 
air,  from  indecent  or  immoral  surroundings. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  203; 

A  seasonal  trade  means  slack  work  and  long  periods  of  un- 
employment alternated  with  such  rushes  that  half-grown  girls 
are  driven  to  the  limits  of  physical  endurance,  so  that  fainting 
and  nervous  collapses  are  not  uncommon.  The  effects  of  factory 
and  store  life  upon- a  young  growing  creature  are  seen  in  a  low- 
ered physical  standard  which  must  tell  in  the  future  in  a  weak- 
ened constitution  for  herself  and  her  children.  Injuries  from 
revolving  rollers,  laundry  machines,  and  so  forth,  spinal  troubles 
and  varicose  veins  from  long  standing,  and  the  frequent  oc- 
currence of  consumption — sure  index  of  fagging  vitality — are 
other  results  of  our  short-sighted  industrial  methods. 

The  extremely  low  wages  paid  to  young  women  workers, 
doubtless  serve  to  recruit  the  ranks  of  prostitution,  the  wages 
paid  in  many  trades  being  utterly  insufficient  to  support  a  girl' 
respectably,  to  give  her  decent  food,  clothing  and  lodging,  not  to 
speak  of  satisfying  her  perfectly  innocent  desire  for  amusement 
and  youthful  society.  And  yet  all  industrial  legislation  affecting 
these  girls  is  decided  without  consultation  with  their  mothers  or 
with  other  adult  women  of  the  community. 

A  voice  in  the  management  of  schools  and  playgrounds,  and 
water  supplies,  and  street  cleaning,  may  come  to  women  through 
school  and  municipal  suffrage,  but  this  by  no  means  covers  all 
the  ground.  Child-labor  laws  are  state  affairs.  Pure-food 
laws  are  state  made  and  state  administered.  Even  national  legis- 
lation may  come  very  close  to  the  most  intimate  concerns  of  a 
woman's  life,  such,  for  instance,  as  the  proposed  national  di- 
vorce bill,  or  the  regulations  which  admit  immigrants  or  deny 
them  admittance. 

For  woman's  voice  to  be  effective  in  all  our  enlarged  house- 
keeping she  needs  full  suffrage ;  and,  if  she  needed  it  for  nothing 
else,  she  has  a  claim  to  share  the  fullest  social  civic  life  for  the- 
sake  of  her  own  mental  development.  Take  the  foreign-born 
woman.  True  education  in  citizenship  is  not  conferred  by  a 
naturalization  paper,  but  by  the  accumulated  experiences  of  life 
in  the  new  country.  Our  school  laws,  our  sanitary  and  labor 
regulations,  whose  very  existence  the  immigrant  woman  often 
learns  only  when  she  comes  up  against  them,  as  it  were,  fornr. 
her  first  introduction  to  the  sense  of  a  large  complex  civic  life. 

For  the  results  of  conferring  the  ballot  upon  working  womem 


204  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

we  can  now  look  across  the  state  to  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
where  the  legislation  in  which  women  have  borne  their  share  is 
beginning  to  attract  the  attention  of  thoughtful  men  and  women 
in  all  civilized  lands.  The  women  voters  in  those  countries 
have  asked  for  the  protection  of  women  and  children  on  lines 
very  similar  to  those  on  which  our  women  have  so  long  worked. 
But  they  have  the  ballot,  their  representatives  sit  in  the  legisla- 
tures. Our  sponsors  rarely  penetrate  further  than  some  outside 
lobby.  Therefore,  it  is  not  strange  that  the  legislation  of  those 
countries  on  matters  involving  the  care  of  infant  life,  the  wages 
and  the  hours  of  women  factory  workers,  the  limitation  of  the 
work  of  children,  and  juvenile-court  legislation,  is  in  many  re- 
spects in  advance  of  anything  we  in  America  can  yet  boast.  Yet 
the  women  of  Australia,  we  are  told,  spent  but  little  of  their 
energy  in  pleading  for  these  reforms,  but  bent  all  their  efforts 
in  winning  for  themselves  the  ballot,  in  forging  for  themselves 
the  labor-saving  tool,  which  should  do  their  work  for  them,  and 
do  it  quickly  and  efficiently. 


NEGATIVE  DISCUSSION 

Arena.  2:  175-81.  June,  1900. 

Real   Case   of   the  Remonstrants   Against  Woman   Suffrage. 

O.  B.  Frothingham. 

The  fact  that  woman  exerts  power  instead  of  force  is  a 
reason  for  keeping  her  in  her  present  condition,  which  is  one 
of  command.  Wendell  Phillips  used  to  say  that  she  had  too 
much  power,  and  ought  to  be  held  to  more  responsibility;  but 
how  voting  would  secure  this,  I  cannot  imagine,  especially  in 
these  days  of  a  secret  ballot.  Governments  ought  to  rest  upon 
power ;  they  do,  in  fact,  in  the  final  resort,  rest  upon  force,  and 
this  is  embodied  in  the  male  sex.  Termagants  may  borrow  what 
comfort  they  can  from  the  King  of  Dahomey's  body-guard  of  fe- 
males, but  the  King  of  Dahomey  does  not  rank  high  among 
monarchs,  neither  do  those  who  compose  his  body-guard  rank 
high  among  w^omen.  Their  feminine  attributes  are  of  the 
smallest.  The  necessities  of  the  "service"  have  not  proved  favor- 
able to  their  womanhood.  It  is  true  that  on  ordinary  occasions 
a  large  number  of  men  are  released  from  military  duty.  The 
crisis  seldom  occurs  when  those  under  the  legal  line  or  above  it 
are  called.  Still,  they  may  be,  they  are  liable.  At  one  period 
of  our  Civil  War  we  v/ere  grateful  for  the  reserve  of  women 
who  could  not  be  summoned  to  the  front,  and  who  were  at 
liberty  to  wait  on  the  wounded  in  hospitals,  to  solace  the  dying, 
to  manage  sanitary  fairs,  and  attend  to  the  various  works  of 
mercy,  while  stronger  arms  wielded  weapons.  It  is  a  grand 
position,  that  of  standing  outside  of  strife  and  using  moral 
power  alone,  keeping  alive  patriotism,  inspiring  valor,  holding 
up  the  highest  aims,  animating  sons,  husbands,  fathers,  and 
breathing  an  atmosphere  of  pity  and  heroism,  aloof  from  the 
perils   of  camp  life.     This   is  a  noble   sort  of   disfranchisement, 


2o6 


SELECTED  ARTICLES 


something  wholly  different  from  the  disfranchisement  "of 
the  pauper,  the  criminal,  the  insane.  These  are  discharged;  wom- 
.en  are  exempt.  These  are  set  aside  as  persons  not  human ; 
women  are  absolved  as  constituting  a  higher  class.  There  is  a 
Tcry  real  distinction  between  being  placed  among  the  beasts,  and 
being  placed  among  the  ''ministering  angels." 

Another  argument  in  favor  of  the  retention  of  women  of  their 
present  place  is  the  preponderance  in  them  of  feeling,  a  pre- 
ponderance that  becomes  the  more  striking  as  they  become  more 
perfect  in  the  traits  which  distinguish  the  sex.  This  peculiarity 
acts  as  a  disqualification  in  the  sphere  of  practical  politics,  which 
rests  mainly  upon  sagacity,  but  is  invaluable  as  an  influence  on 
society.  The  consciousness  of  possessing  political  responsibility 
may,  in  some  cases,  ennoble;  though  that  will  depend  on  cir- 
cumstances. The  possession  of  the  ballot  may  sometimes  be  of 
actual  value.  The  strongest  argument  in  favor  of  female  suf- 
frage I  ever  heard  turned  on  this  latter  point.  A  poor  woman 
was  brought  before  a  police  justice,  charged  with  some  offence. 
The  judge  imposed  the  heaviest  sentence  that  was  allowed  by 
the  law.  A  bystander  observed  to  his  companion,  "That  woman 
should  have  been  let  off  more  easily."  "Yes,"  replied  the  other, 
"she  would  have  been  if  she  could  have  helped  herself.  But, 
you  see,  she  has  no  vote,  and  ours  is  an  elective  judiciary."  Let 
us  hope  that  all  judges  are  not  like  that  one,  and  that  there  are 
women  who  are  not  dragged  before  police  courts.  Whatever  we 
may  think  oi  theoretical  politics,  the  practice  of  poHtics  is  not 
ennobling.  The  educating  power  of  the  suffrage  is  sometimes 
over-estimated.  It  does  educate  in  chicanery,  cunning,  the  arts 
of  party  management,  the  market  price  of  manhood,  skill  in 
offering  rewards  for  service.  But  does  it  educate  in  intelligence, 
a  broad  view  of  statemanship,  the  love  of  justice,  patriotism, 
humanity,  respect  for  citizenship?  Virtuous  women  cannot  be 
aware  of  the  dangers  they  will  have  to  encounter  if  they  enter 
the  political  arena.  Society  is  not  alive  to  the  corruption  that 
will  follow  the  introduction  of  a  new  kind  of  bribery  into  na- 
tional and  state  affairs.  We  need  all  the  purity,  modesty, 
reticence,  we  can  get,  and  it  comes  to  us  best,  in  the  least  adul- 
terated form,  from  a  class  set  apart,  and  having  simply  a  moral 
influence  on  the  questions  before  the  people.    The  importance  of 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  207 

a  mass  of  influence  conditioned  by  moral  restrictions  alone,  can 
hardly  be  estimated  too  highly,  and,  at  present,  women  hold 
this  advantage :  they  will  exert  it  more  and  more,  as  they  ex- 
pand in  the  true  graces  that  belong  to  their  sex.  Just  now  they 
come  nearer  to  being  a  privileged  body  than  any  under  the  sun, 
as  near  as  our  American  institutions  permit.  Much  more  truly 
privileged  than  any  European  order,  because  purely  ethical  in 
character,  not  formally  instituted,  but  ordained  by  Divine  decree. 
Even  now  deference  is  paid  them,  but  this  deference  is  but  a 
shadow  of  what  will  be  when  they  fully  justify  their  high 
calling.  The  old  feudal  politeness  is  but  a  symbol  of  the  respect 
that  will  be  rendered  by  the  best  minds  to  the  arbiters  of  a 
sacred  destiny.  It  may  be  conceded  that  the  actual  woman  is  na 
more  virtuous  than  the  man,  but  her  genius  is  certainly  more 
ethereal ;  her  temptation  to  earthiness  is  less ;  she  is  delivered 
from  the  necessity  of  wading  through  mud  to  a  throne^ 

This  predominance  of  sentiment  in  woman  renders  her  essen- 
tially an  idealist.  She  jumps  at  conclusions.  She  cannot  stop 
short  of  final  results.  She  carries  out  principles  to  the  end,  re- 
gardless of  processes.  She  can  make  no  allowance  for  slowness* 
for  tentative  or  compromising  measures.  Her  reforms  are 
sweeping.  She  would  close  all  the  bars  and  liquor  saloons,  and 
make  it  a  crime  to  sell  intoxicating  drink.  She  would  shut  up  all 
gambling-rooms,  all  houses  of  assignation,  thus  compelling  people 
to  be  virtuous.  We  may  hope  to  arrive  at  the  same  goal  by-and- 
by,  but  by  gradual  steps.  Of  the  philosophy  of  government 
there  is  no  question.  Our  concern  is  with  practical  politics,  en- 
tirely, and  practical  politics  is  an  experimental  science,  where 
not  the  best  thing  but  the  best  thing  possible  is  considered.  Mis- 
takes, blunders,  errors  there  must  be.  Steps  must  be  retraced. 
Votes  must  be  annulled.  Our  feet  are  always  in  the  water,  for 
in  a  republic,  men  sail,  as  Fisher  Ames  said,  on  a  raft.  The 
possession  of  the  suffrage  is  therefore  a  painful  if  not,  as  many 
think,  a  doubtful  boon,  a  duty  rather  than  a  privilege.  They  wha 
would  discharge  it  thoroughly  are  compelled  to  work  hard,  to- 
encounter  dirt,  to  frequent  disagreeable  places,  to  consort  with 
unpleasant  people,  to  listen  smilingly  to  vacuous  speeches,  and,, 
after  all,  to  accept  a  portion  only  of  the  desired  truth.  The 
dainty  man  shrinks  from  the  task;  the  careless  man  avoids  it; 


2o8  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  indifferent  man  neglects  it.  There  is  complaint,  there  is  re- 
monstrance, and  partial  improvement.  But  the  duty  is  any- 
thing but  a  pleasure,  and  they  upon  whom  the  work  is  thrust  are, 
in  many  instances,  unwilling  that  women  should  defile  themselves 
with  that  mire.  To  cast  a  ballot  is  an  easy  matter,  but  to  per- 
form the  preliminary  drudgery  is  not  easy.  A  few  are  jealous 
of  their  right  to  vote,  but  not  all.  There  are  numbers  who 
welcome  disfranchisement  from  change  of  residence,  as  bring- 
ing at  least  temporary  exemption. 

I  am  speaking  of  women  who  follow  the  bent  of  their  genius. 
These  are  the  few,  and  they  will  be  likely  to  shun  the  bitter 
controversies  of  political  life,  greatly  preferring  the  attitude  of 
moral  inspirers ;  these  would  simply  be  hampered  by  the  action 
of  the  voters.  In  the  event  of  woman  suffrage  being  established, 
the  low'er  class  would  hardly  go  to  the  polls  because  if  they 
opposed  the  men,  there  would  be  strife ;  the  fashionable  would 
not,  because  they  do  not  care ;  the  philanthropic  have  too  much 
to  do  already,  with  charitable  work ;  the  great  middle  class,  con- 
sisting of  the  wives,  sisters,  daughters  of  active  men  in  the 
world's,  business,  is  precisely  that  which  we  rely  on  for  im- 
mediate moral  influence,  and  which  it  is  desirable  to  rescue  from 
absorption  in  the  common  run  of  mundane  interests.  In  either 
case,  there  is  a  distinct  loss  of  power.  The  cultivated  and 
philanthropic  classes  are  embarrassed ;  the  lower  class  is  angered ; 
the  middle  class  is  confused  by  the  conflict  of  their  dreams  with 
their  duties,  their  aspirations  after  moral  serenity  and  their  daily 
social  responsibilities.  They  can  neither  be  inspirers  nor  help- 
mates, and  their  condition  is  not  a  happy  one. 

There  seem  to  be  two  theories  of  woman  among  those  who 
hope  for  her  future.  With  no  others  have  we  anything  to  do. 
According  to  one  view,  she  is  a  creature  in  an  inferior  position ; 
oppressed,  kept  in  subjection,  held  down  by  the  might  of  man; 
a  creature  without  opportunities,  or  chance  to  show  what  she  is, 
or  what  she  can  do.  The  laws  are  against  her;  customs  are  but 
seemingly  in  her  favor ;  politeness  is  a  gilded  form  of  contempt. 
If  this  theory  be  true,  then  by  all  means,  let  emancipation  be 
eagerly  pursued,  and  brought  about  as  soon  as  possible.  Let 
liberty  have  her  full  course.  Hands  off !  We  must  all  conspire 
to  lift  women  up;  to  put  them  on  the  same  level  with  men;  to 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  209 

'abolish  every  vestige  of  ownership  or  subjugation.  Every  right- 
minded  man  desires  no  less  than  this.  The  other  theory  regards 
woman  as  an  independent  creature ;  with  a  genius  of  her  own, 
having  a  record  in  the  past,  a  work  in  the  present,  a  career  in 
the  time  to  come,  providentially  placed  and  equipped,  and  simply 
misapprehended.  If  this  account  be  received,  then  all  she  needs 
is  appreciation,  a  hearty  welcome,  an  honest  sympathy.  En- 
courage her  shyness.  Applaud  her  achievements.  Let  all  doors 
that  lead  into  cellars  be  kept  shut.  ^  Let  her  not  be  set  to  tasks 
that  she  cannot  perform.  Let  her  not  be  invited  to  imitate  men, 
or  to  enter  into  competition  with  them.  Let  her  services  to 
society  be  gratefully  acknowledged  and  more  like  them  be 
asked  for.  She  is  the  complement  of  man,  and  of  course  man 
cannot  get  along  without  her.  If  he  is  the  hand,  she  is  the  heart; 
not  his  superior,  but  his  equal  in  another  sphere..  It  is  needless 
to  say  that  this  latter  theory  is  the  one  accepted  here. 


Atlantic  Monthly.  65:  310-20.  March,  1890. 

Woman  Suffrage    Pro  and  Con.    Charles  Worcester  Clark. 

Women  have,  on  the  whole,  less  information  on  political  sub- 
jects than  have  men.  As  their  powers  are  of  the  domestic  rather 
than  the  political  sort,  so  their  ordinary  course  of  life  is  not 
such  as  to  give  them  much  knowledge  of  public  questions  or  of 
the  character  of  public  men.  They  need  special  preparation  in 
order  to  vote  intelligently.  So,  it  made  be  said,  do  men.  Never- 
theless, very  few  men  do  make  a  study  of  politics.  The  great 
majority,  except  for  the  questionable  information  furnished  by 
the  partisan  press,  go  to  the  polls  with. only  such  knowledge  of 
the  issues  and  the  candidates  as  comes  to  them  in  their  every- 
day life.  But,  fortunately,  this  is  considerable.  It  is  much  more 
than  women  have.  The  average  man  understands  the  difference 
in  functions  of  national  and  state  governments,  and  knows  what 
part  the  candidate  for  whom  he  votes  will  have  to  play  if 
elected.  The  average  woman  knows  nothing  of  this.  Neither 
has  she  any  idea  what  the  tariff  is,  though  she  may  applaud  or 
denounce  it  with  all  the  vehemence  of  the  party  newspaper  she 
occasionally  rtads.     This  ignorance  is  not  discreditable  to  her, 


210  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

for  she  has  enough  to  do  already,  but  it  exists.  There  is,  of  * 
course,  a  large  number  of  women  of  high  education  and  com- 
parative leisure,  who  are  well  informed  on  public  questions; 
better  informed,  perhaps,  than  any  corresponding  number  of 
men,  except  it  be  those  whose  profession  is  politics,  and  in  im- 
partiality women  must  be  much  superior  to  these.  There  is, 
however,  no  possible  way  of  making  selections  from  the  mass. 
Some  one  has  contended  that  all  women  ought  to  be  allowed  to 
vote,  because  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  is  far  better  fitted  for 
citizenship  than  is  the  average  male  voter.  This  sort  of  argu- 
ment proves  too  much,  for  by  the  same  token  we  would  all 
gladly  submit  to  a  despotism  if  only  Mrs.  Howe  were  to  be  the 
despot.  There  is  no  reason  for  believing  that  the  average  woman 
would  take  any  more  pains  to  fit  herself  for  the  duties  of  a 
voter  than  the  average  man  takes ;  and  the  information  which 
comes  to  her  without  special  effort  is  certainly  less,  as  is  conse- 
quently her  interest  in  public  affairs,  unconnected  as  they  are 
with  her  daily  life.  It  is  very  likely  that  on  their  first  enfran- 
chisement only  the  best  qualified  women  would  vote,  as  is  said 
to  be  the  case  in  Kansas ;  but  the  exigencies  of  party  politics 
would  never  permit  such  a  state  of  things  to  continue  long. 
Thus,  to  enfranchise  women  would  be,  in  the  end,  to  diminish, 
if  not  the  average  sound  judgment  of  the  body  of  voters,  at 
least  the  average  information  and  the  average  interest  in  public 
affairs. 

But,  apart  from  general  principles,  what  would  be  the  effect 
of  woman's  ballot  on  the  laws,  on  women,  and  on  society?  First 
of  all,  does  women  need  enfranchisement  as  a  means  of  protec- 
tion against  unequal  laws?  That  there  are  some  such,  especially 
concerning  independent  rights  in  property,  it  would  be  idle  to 
deny.  Women  ask  for  the  ballot  that  they  may  repeal  them. 
Their  argument  is  valid.  The  need  of  any  class  for  protection 
against  acknowledged  wrongs  must  be  admitted  to  justify  a  de- 
mand for  the  suffrage.  But  this  argument,  though  unanswerable, 
is  not  conclusive  of  the  whole  subject.  If  the  votes  of  women 
were  to  be,  in  the  future,  continually  necessary  to  save  them 
from  oppression,  their  claim  to  the  franchise  would  be  just. 
But  the  objectionable  laws  are  not  the  deliberate  expression  of 
present  public  sentiment;  they  are  a  relic  of  past  prejudice,  and 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  211 

are,  moreover,  gradually  disappearing.  If  those  who  magnify 
their  sufferings  under  them  had  put  into  direct  effort  to  secure 
their  repeal  one  half  the  energy  they  have  expended  on  the  cir- 
cuitous method  of  repeal  by  means  of  woman  suft'rage,  these 
obnoxious  statutes  would  now  be  a  thing  of  the  past.  It  is,  in 
fact,  impossible  to  avoid  the  suspicion  that  the  suffragists,  who 
in  all  their  tactics  display  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent,  are  not 
very  anxious  to  destroy  their  strongest  argument.  Yet  woman 
suffrage  is  a  far  more  serious  matter  than  any  mere  question  of 
hastening  the  death  of  a  few  antiquated  laws.  The  end  desired 
is  insignificant  in  comparison  with  the  means  proposed  for  ob- 
taining it.  Nevertheless,  a  sense  of  unfairness  in  existing 
statutes  is  one  of  the  strongest  motives  in  arousing  women  to 
discontent  with  their  present  condition,  and  in  prompting  a  de- 
mands this  cause  of  discontent,  wherever  it  still  exists,  be 
.ponents  of  woman  suffrage,  no  less  than  justiae  to  women,  de- 
mands that  this  cause  of  discontent,  wherever  it  still  exists,  be 
removed.  Men  certainly  ought  to  be  more  ready  to  give  women 
just  laws  alone  than  to  give  the  laws  and  the  suffrage  at  the 
same  time.  After  all,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  woman 
suffrage  would  bring  "women's  rights." 

Aside,  however,  from  the  question  of  special  laws,  the  ballot 
is  claimed  for  women  who  are  property  holders,  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  taxed  without  representation.  But  property  taxes 
are  laid  without  discrimination.  Women  do  not  need  the  ballot 
for  protection  against  impositions  directed  with  especial  severity 
against  their  possessions.  Rightly  or  wrongly,  we  give  equal 
suffrage  to  all,,  in  this  country,  regardless  of  their  wealth.  To 
grant  the  ballot  to  women  of  property,  while  withholding  it  from 
others,  would  be  to  increase  the  relative  power  in  the  state  of 
property  holders  as  such,  regardless  of  the  question  of  sex. 
Thus  the  proposition  fo  enfranchise  those  women  alone  who  are 
taxpayers  ought  to  be  treated  as  a  measure  designed  to  increase 
the  political  power  of  property,  rather  than  as  one  required  to 
guard  any  peculiar  rights  of  woman.  That  would,  very  likely, 
be  a  good  thing,  especially  in  cities ;  but  a  distinction  so  contrary 
to  American  ideas  could  not  long  be  maintained.  The  result 
would  inevitably  be  the  admission  of  all  women  to  the  right  of 
suffrage.     Besides,  it  is  women  without  property,  wage-earners, 


212  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

who  most  need  legal  protection ;  while  every  mother  has  a 
stronger  interest  in  the  commonwealth  than  stocks  and  bonds  can 
give.  To  extend  the  franchise  to  widowed  mothers,  who  must 
otherwise  be  unrepresented  in  the  state,  would  be  a  gracious  and 
reasonable  act.  Moreover,  being  a  recognition  of  the  principle 
of  family  representation,  it  would  count  as  a  precedent  against, 
rather  than  for,  any  further  enfranchisement  of  women.  For 
this  reason,  probably,  such  a  proposal  finds  no  favor  with  pro- 
fessional agitators. 

In  the  second  place,  what  would  be  the  effect  of  woman's 
participation  in  politics  on  her  own  character  and  life?  Wlould 
she  find  herself  burdened  by  an  additional  duty,  or  uplifted  by 
th  inspiration  of  broader  interests?  Women  have  their  share 
of  the  world's  work  as  it  is,  and  on  the  principle  of  division  of 
labor  the  duties  of  government  should  be  left  where  they  now 
are,  with  men.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  women  ought  not  to  be 
discouraged  from  entering  any  field  of  thought,  least  of  all,  as 
the  English  petitioners  say,  ''the  concerns  of  their  country."  Is 
participation  in  political  action,  then,  essential  to  interest  m 
political  subjects?  In  certain  cases,  doubtless,  it  creates  such  an 
interest;  it  must  be  observed,  however,  that  many  of  our  most 
intelligent  men,  though  to  their  shame,  neglect  their  public 
duties  entirely.  The  educating  power  of  the  ballot  is  much  ex- 
aggerated in  popular  estimation.  Some  women  might  be  aroused 
by  its  possession,  but  only  a  few.  Moreover,  even  for  these  few 
there  is  danger  that  the  right  of  suffrage  would  develop  false 
ideals.  The  work  of  the  home  is  already  too  much  put  off 
upon  school  and  church.  The  idea  seems  to  be  prevalent  in  some 
quarters  that  commonplace  women  will  do  well  enough  for 
mothers,  but  that  superior  women  should  teach.  One  of  the 
latter  class  has  lately  said  that  a  college  graduate  ''had  no  busi- 
ness to  go  and  get  married."  It  was  "obtaining  her  education  on 
false  pretenses."  Her  higher  duty  lay  in  the  school-room.  In 
the  same  way,  the  past  year  has  furnished  abundant  illustration, 
in  its  prohibition  campaigns,  of  the  notion  that  the  ballot,  wom- 
an's ballot  if  she  had  it,  could  do  the  work  for  morality  which 
the  home,  the  church,  and  the  school  combined  have  failed  to 
do.  If  women  actually  had  the  ballot,  those  of  them  who  cherish 
this  mistake  would  indulge  in  it  still  further,  and,  until  disap- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  213 

pointment  taught  them  wisdom,  would  neglect  their  real  oppor- 
tunities for  their  imaginary  ones.  They  would  lower  them- 
selves in  the  delusion  that  they  were  elevating  politics.  In  this 
respect,  then,  to  just  what  extent  it  is  idle  to  conjecture,  woman 
suffrage  might  at  present,  in  this  country,  have  an  injurious 
effect  on  her  ideals  and  life.  I  do  not  wish  to  magnify  this 
danger,  nor  to  underrate  the  benefit  which  the  franchise  would 
confer  on  women  who  have  both  opportunity  and  disposition  to 
make  the  most  of  it.  Its  influence  in  enlarging  their  range  of 
thought,  and  in  giving  them  one  more  common  interest  with  men, 
would  be  one  certain  good  result  of  their  enfranchisement ;  but 
it  would  be  realized  by  comparatively  few.  To  the  majority, 
suffrage  would  be  only  a  burdensome  duty,  sometimes  ill  per- 
formed, more  often  neglected. 


Bibliotheca  Sacra.  67:  335-46.  April,  1910. 

Is  Woman's  Suffrage  an  Enlightened  and  Justifiable   Policy  for 
the  State?     Henry  A.  Stimson. 

The  argument  against  woman's  suffrage  may  be  summed  up 
in  two  phrases:  it  will  hot  do  vv^hat  is  claimed  for  it;  and  it 
will  occasion  unanticipated  evil. 

What   Woman's   Suffrage    Will  Not  Do. 

I.  It  will  not  remove  economic  ills.  Many  are  urging  it  be- 
cause of  its  assumed  value  in  bettering  the  condition  of  women 
workers,  particularly  girls  w^ho  are  on  a  strike  or  are  abused 
by  the  police,  and  teachers  and  other  women  who  do  not  re- 
ceive the  same  pay  as  men  holding  similar  positions.  No  one 
has,  as  yet,  proposed  a  program  by  which,  when  the  ballot  is 
given  to  women,  they  can  proceed  effectively  to  secure  this 
result.  The  pay  of  any  worker  in  any  industry  is  primarily  de- 
termined by  what  the  industry  can  afford,  and  by  the  available 
supply  of  labor.  The  chief  act  in  the  employment  of  women  is 
that,  with  most  women,  work  outside  the  home  is  only  an 
ad  interim  employment.  It  is  taken  up  by  young  women  in 
anticipation  of  the  day  when  they  will  marry  and  abandon  it  for 
the  life  that  opens  for  them  in  their  own  home ;  it  is  held  by  other 


214  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

women  because  the  exigencies  of  their  life  leave  them  without  a 
home,  or  with  a  home  where  there  is  not  adequate  support.  In  the 
latter  case  they  are  handicapped  in  so  many  directions  that  their 
work  is  necessarily  done  under  serious  restrictions.  They  can- 
not give  their  whole  strength  or  thought  to  their  work  because  of 
divided  cares  involved  in  their  home  relations.  Or  they  are  not 
under  the  necessity  of  earning  wage  adequate  to  their  support, 
because,  as  in  the  case  of  many  young  women,  they  have  a  home 
provided  for  them  and  they  need  only  to  earn  enough  for  their 
extra  or  personal  wants.  In  all  such  cases  women  do  work,  and 
miust  work,  for  less  pay  than  workers  of  a  more  serious  class 
require.  Their  presence  in  the  market  breaks' the  price  of  wages, 
and  is,  as  shown  by  Mr.  Charles  Booth  in  his  exhaustive  studies 
of  industrial  life  in  London,  the  chief  reason  for  the  distressing 
condition  of  women  in  that  great  city.  The  pri-ce  paid  for  any 
given  work  is  sure  to  be  fixed  by  the  price  at  which  the  cheapest 
workers  can  be  obtained,  and  nothing  that  the  state  can  do  will 
alter  that  law  of  industry,  under  which  goods  must  be  pro- 
duced as  cheaply  as  possible  or  the  industry  must  eventually 
fail.  No  one  has,  as  yet,  ventured  to  point  out  exactly  how 
giving  women  the  ballot  will  affect  wages.  What  will  affect 
wages  is  industrial  conditions  which  give  a  community  excep- 
tional advantage  in  the  oper^  market,  cheap  raw  material,  cheap 
mechanical  power,  attractive  conditions  of  light  and  air  and 
cleanliness,  abundance  of  labor  of  an  intelligent  class.  These 
and  similar  things  are  essential  to  successful  production ;  and 
wherever  these  maintain,  wages  will  be  foimd  to  be  in  harmony 
with  them,  that  is,  they  will  be  higher  than  under  other  condi- 
tions ;  and  they  can  be  maintained  because  the  economic  situa- 
tion of  the  mills  makes  it  possible  to  pay  them.  All  that  the 
state  can  do  is  to  secure  as  far  as  possible  proper  conditions  oi 
labor,  and  to  prevent  that  injury  to  the  community  which  occurs 
from  child  labor  and  the  employment  of  women  in  what  are  to 
them  destructive  vocations  to  which  cither  their  necessities  or 
the  attractions  of  large  wages  might  draw  them,  as,  for  example, 
mining. 

2.  It  will  not  secure  better  personal  treatment  for  women. 
Despite  the  emphasis  with  which  some  women  speakers  repudiate 
the   thought   of   privilege,   the   fact   is   that   society   rests   on   the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  215 

possession  of  privilege  as  one  of  its  corner-stones.  The  char- 
acteristic of  civilized  society  is  that  every  member,  rich  or  poor, 
by  virtue  of  his  being  a  part  of  the  social  structure,  however 
humble,  shares  the  privileges  v^hich  pertain  to  the  community  as 
a  whole.  Those  privileges  are  in  part  the  gift  of  God,  in  cli- 
mate, and  material  surroundings,  and  in  still  larger  part  the  in- 
heritance of  the  past,  in  which  much  blood  has  been  shed  and 
great  sacrifice  has  been  made  to  secure  liberties  which  otherwise 
would  not  exist  and  which  many  other  communities  do  not 
possess.  These  are  privileges  to  which  we  may  be  born,  or  which 
we  may  share  by  adoption.  We  speak  of  them  as  the  gifts  of 
God,  or  of  nature,  or  of  inheritance.  In  any  case  they  are 
privileges,  and  in  no  true  sense  rights.  They  become  rights  only 
so  far  as  they  are  maintained  by  a  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the 
sharers  of  them  akin  to  that  by  which  they  were  won.  In 
civilized  society  the  range  of  such  privileges  is  vastly  increased. 
It  extends  to  personal  protection,  to  all  that  is  involved  in  good 
mannefs,  and  especially  in  the  courtesy  that  is  shown  to  women 
and  the  tenderness  of  the  public  toward  children.  As  a  matter" 
of  fact,  courtesy  as  between  men,  but  pre-eminently  as  toward 
women  on  the  part  of  men,  is  the  mark  of  such  society.  That 
courtesy  is  found  only  in  highly  civilized  communities,  and  takes 
on  its  best  forms  only  when  those  communities  are  largely  gov- 
erned by  the  standards  of  a  very  high  morality  and  a  very  spir- 
itual religion.  They  are  quickly  lost,  wherever  a  community 
drops  its  standard  of  morality,  or  becomes  indifferent  to  the 
sanction  of  its  religion ;  so  that  the  treatment  of  women  in  the 
streets  and  in  the  social  intercourse  of  a  community  is  one  of  the 
surest  and  most  quickly  accepted  standards  of  both  its  morals 
and  its  culture.  This  courtesy  does  not  depend  upon  any  particu- 
lar form  of  administration  of  the  state.  It  may  be  found  in  a. 
monarchy  in  as  highly  developed  a  form  as  in  a  republic.  It 
is  due  primarily  to  the  respect  which  men  have  for  women,  and 
to  the  character  of  the  women.  Where  they  maintain  high  ideals 
of  dignity  and  purity  and  womanly  reserve  and  intelligence,  where 
especially  they  represent  that  standard  which  the  word  "mother" 
connotes,  there  courtesy  in  its  finest  form  is  found.  It  is  difficult 
to  see  how  the  possession  of  the  ballot  can  possibly  affect  this 
for  good.     Public  life,  in  all   forms,  is  remote   from  what  has 


2i6  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

been  in  the  past  the  ideal  life  of  women,  and  has  been  so  entirely 
out  of  the  range  of  their  life  that  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  it  can 
introduce  into  it  elements  that  will  reinforce  those  traits  which 
constitute  at  once  woman's  greatest  charm  and  her  most  effective 
influence.  It  is  a  simple  fact  of  history  that  a  community  which 
does  not  accord  in  its  esteem  a  place  to  women  above  men,  as- 
signs them  to  a  place  below  them.  It  is  impossible  to  maintain 
them  on  the  same  level.  No  state  and  no  civilization  has  ever 
succeeded  in  doing  this. 

3.  It  will  not  help  the  community  politically.  It  is  urged 
that  introducing  women  by  the  ballot  into  public  life  will  purify 
politics.  At  present  the  effort  to  purify  politics  is  resisted  chiefly 
by  two  factors :  on  the  one  hand,  a  mass  of  ignorant  voters ; 
and  on  the  other  hand  corrupt,  but  highly  skilled,  political  man- 
agers. Giving  women  the  ballot  would  at  once  add  greatly  to 
the  number  of  ignorant  voters,  and  the  mass  with  which  every 
reform  movement  has  to  deal  would  become  by  so  much  the 
more  obstructive,  making  the  situation  by  so  much  more  difficult 
than  it  is  now ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  machine  politician 
is  so  adept  at  his  trade,  because  it  has  so  long  been  practised 
by  him  and  his  kind,  because  he  is  so  much  less  scrupulous  than 
women,  and  because  he  can  give  himself  wholly  to  it  as  a  busi- 
ness, that  good  women  and  intelligent  women  would  find  them- 
selves no  match  for  him  in  the  battle  of  public  life,  and  would  be 
compelled,  in  spite  of  themselves,  either  to  adopt  his  ways  ?nd 
become  like  him,  increasing  corruption,  or  to  surrender  to  his 
efforts,  and  consciously  or  unconsciously  become  his  tool.  The 
educational  process  for  women,  to  fit  them  for  the  ballot,  would 
necessarily  be  preceded  by  a  long  period  of  political  disorganiza- 
tion and  corruption  which  would  only  repeat  the  Carpet-bag 
period  of  the  South,  and  reproduce  evils  not  unlike  those  which 
were  precipitated  upon  the  country  by  giving  the  suffrage  to 
the  Freedmen,  even  though  at  the  time  that  seemed  an  absolute 
necessity   following  upon  the   Civil  War. 

4.  Furthermore,  it  will  not  help  women  individually.  It 
is  claimed  that  the  suffrage  is  necessary  chiefly  for  the  good 
that  it  will  do  to  woman.  This  is  so  purely  an  untried  experi- 
ment that  there  is  room  for  very  grave  doubts  about  it.  Un- 
doubtedly, it  is  well  for  man  or  woman  to  be  intelligent  in  mat- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  217 

ters  of  public  life,  but  that  that  intelligence  will  be  secured  to 
any  great  degree  by  the  possession  of  the  ballot  does  not  ap- 
pear; or,  at  least,  it  would  seem  that  every  opportunity  of  gain- 
ing information,  and  of  intelligent  interest  in  public  affairs,  is 
open  to  woman  to-day  if  she  cares  to  avail  herself  of  them,  and 
the  growing  intelligence  of  the  community  will  make  this  knowl- 
edge both  attractive  and  available  for  her,  whether  she  has  the 
ballot  or  not. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  deliver  women  from  the  "tyranny  ci 
men"  or  the  oppression  of  daily  toil.  Civilization  is  rapidly  doing 
that.  In  barbarism  woman  does  all  the  arduous  labor.  As 
society  advances  man  has  assumed  that,  and  the  woman  has 
been  left  free  for  the  care  of  the  home,  until  to-day  even  milking 
and  the  making  of  butter  on  the 'farm  are  no  longer  woman's 
work.  The  vast  majority  of  women  in  civilized  lands  can  to-day 
live  a  womanly  life.  Personal  culture  and  personal  comfort  and 
gracious  service  are  within  their  reach  as  never  before. 

But  it  is  also  to  be  said  that  the  possession  of  the  ballot  will 
be  very  sure  to  create  unanticipated  evils. 

What  Woman's  Suffrage  Will  Do. 

1.  It  will  bring  new  temptations  to  w^eak  women,  and  crowd 
them  upon  them  with  great  force,  in  ways  which  women  little 
anticipate.  It  will  draw  women  out  of  their  homes  and  expose 
them  in  the  very  necessities  of  public  life  to  forms  of  tempta- 
tions for  which  they  are  little  prepared.  Men  have  this  ex- 
perience, and  one  of  the  saddest  facts  in  our  public  life  is  the 
breaking  down  of  otherwise  reputable  men  as  a  consequence  of 
their  going  into  politics,  or  accepting  office.  It  will  be  a  sad 
day  when  the  community  has  to  face  the  added  amount  of  evil 
which  will  appear  if  women  enter  the  same  field. 

2.  It  will  greatly  increase  the  ignorant  and  usable  proletariat. 
It  is  not  a  question  whether  women  are  more  or  less  intelligent 
than  men,  or  whether  their  character  is  stronger  or  weaker. 
The  possession  of  the  ballot  would  at  once  add  a  mass  of  voters 
to  the  voting  list  who  are  little  informed  as  to  the  questions  that 
are  before  them,  are  little  accustomed  to  deal  with  external  pres- 
sure, and  are  correspondingly  open  to  undue  influence.  This 
to-day  is  the  great  burden  upon  the  civic  life  of  every  demo- 


2i8  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

cratic  community,  and  democracy  is  to-day  on  trial  in  no  other 
direction  more  seriously  than  in  this,  its  inability  promptly  and 
adequately  to  educate  its  less  intelligent  voters,  and  to  hold  them 
to  any  adequate  sense  of  their  electoral  responsibilities.  In- 
creasing the  number  of  such  voters  would  be  a  disaster. 

3.  It  will  introduce  new  elements  of  evil  into  corrupt  poli- 
tics, because  women  are  women  and  not  men.  Their  entrance 
into  corrupt  political  life  so  far  as  they  would  enter  it,  and 
many  would,  because  women  are  not  all  saints,  would  be  the 
introduction  of  an  unspeakable  element  of  public  demoralization, 
to  offset  which  it  would  be  necessary  to  show  that  the  benefit  of 
having  good  women  enter  politics  would  far  counterbalance  this 
evil,  which  unfortunately,  is  not  demonstrable. 

4.  It  will  cost  women  the* loss  of  much  of  the  personal  in- 
fluence which  they  now  possess.  So  far  as  women  have  in- 
fluenced legislation  and  public  officers,  and  their  influence  has 
been  constant  and  effective  in  many  directions,  it  has  been  due 
to  the  character  and  the  intelligence  of  the  women  who  advocated 
good  causes.  Does  any  one  think  that  the  late  Mrs.  Josephine 
Shaw  Lowell,  of  blessed  memory,  would  have  had  more  influence 
in  the  state  of  New  York  than  she  did  have  if  she  had  had  the 
ballot?  Men  in  all  departments  of  public  life  were  only  too 
glad  to  yield  to  her  judgment  and  to  follow  her  intelligent  de- 
sire. To-day  in  many  departments  of  administration  of  the 
state,  the  presence  and  the  counsel  of  wise  and  good  women  is 
in  the  highest  degree  important.  The  danger  is  that  if  women 
should  appear  advocating  public  measures,  being  at  the  same 
time  themselves  identified  with  political  factions,  or  perhaps 
known  as  successful  political  managers,  their  personal  influence 
would  surely  be  diminished,  and  not  increased.  So  long  as  a 
woman  now  is  recognized  as  interested  in  any  matter  of  public 
welfare,  the  very  fact  that  she  is  unselfish  in  her  advocacy,  and 
has  no  private  interests  to  gain,  gives  her  a  power  that  would 
disappear,  were  her  political  condition  to  be  altered. 

5.  It  will  add  a  new  excitement  to  lives  already  greatly 
over-excited,  especially  in  the  cities.  One  of  the  chief  prob- 
lems in  our  American  life  to-day  is  to  protect  even  the  men 
from  the  pressure  of  overstrain.  We  are  seeing  many  of  the 
strongest  fall  and  die  in  the  prime  of  middle  life  because  the 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  219 

burden  of  life  is  too  heavy  for  them.  All  wise  physicians  are 
warning  both  men  and  women  of  the  danger  of  so  much  excite- 
mtent.  The  sterility  of  American  homes,  which  in  some  parts  of 
the  country  has  become  alarming,  is  now  Shown  to  be  closely 
connected  with  this  condition.  The  suffrage  will  add  one  more 
to  these  destructive  influences  bearing  upon  that  element  in 
human  life  which  is  most  sensitive,  and  needs  more  protection; 
and  the  mothers,  actual  or  potential,  to-day  are  needing  a  re- 
adjustment of  the  conditions  of  their  life,  if  the  family  is  to  be 
preserved  and  the  home  is  to  be  guarded  against  the  influences 
which  to-day  in  so  many  melancholy  cases  are  destroying  it. 

6.  It  will  divert  the  attention  of  the  women  from  the 
agencies  for  good  which  are  now  within  their  reach.  One  can- 
not but  feel  that  if  a  small  part  of  the  time  and  excited  interest 
which  is  given  by  the  women  to  this  effort  of  securing  the  suf- 
frage were  given  to  dealing  directly  with  the  evils  of  which  they 
are  talking,  not  one  of  them  but  what  would  have  been  remedied. 
Their  own  attention  and  the  attention  of  other  well-disposed 
people  is  diverted  from  the  actual  condition  of  the  working- 
girl,  and  of  the  teacher  and  her  compensation,  of  the  shop-girl, 
of  the  school  children,  and  of  women  and  children  in  factories, 
in  order  that  it  may  be  fixed  on  this  question  of  suffrage,  which 
is  at  best  a  remote  and  problematic  method  of  doing  them  any 
good.  The  service  which  women  could  render,  are  rendering 
in  many  instances,  in  all  these  directions,  is  to-day  unlimited. 
It  is  both  effective  and  prompt  in  its  results.  The  suffrage  agita- 
tion, so  far  as  these  immediate  interests  are  concerned,  is  doing 
far  more  harm  than  good. 

7.  And,  finally,  it  introduces  a  terrible  risk  into  the  life  of 
the  state  because,  once  given,  it  is  unalterable.  The  experiment 
must  be  tried,  if  at  all,  in  its  entirety.  The  women  recognize 
the  little  value  of  the  attempts  that  have  been  made  of  giving 
them  a  limited  suffrage.  In  Massachusetts,  where  thirty  years 
ago  women  were  permitted  to  vote  in  educational  matters,  it  is 
a  complete  failure.  In  one  hundred  eighty  cities  and  towns  of 
Massachusetts  last  year  net  a  single  woman  voted.  In  France, 
more  recently  women  have  been  permitted  to  vote  for  the  judges 
of  the  commercial  courts,  though  more  women  are  engaged  in 
business  in  France  than  in  any  other  country,  and  French  women 


220  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

are  proverbially  expert  as  business  women,  hardl}^  a  woman  has 
voted.  And  in  the  cases  where  small  groups  did  appear  to  vote 
they  were  found  to  be  clerks  in  banks  whose  officers  sent  them 
out  for  the  purpose.  Therefore,  it  must  be  tried,  if  to-day  we 
would  satisfy  its  advocates,  without  limitation.  It  must  be 
given  to  women  very  much  as  the  ballot  was  given  to  the  lib- 
erated slaves  of  the  South.  We  certainly  do  not  want  to  find 
ourselves  under  the  necessity  of  trying  to  take  it  back,  because 
of  the  evils  which  it  may  be  found  to  produce,  by  methods  like 
those  by  which  the  southern  states  have  felt  compelled  to  protect 
themselves, — methods  obviously  more  disastrous  to  the  morals 
of  the  state  than  the  evils  which  they  were  set  to  remedy. 

It  must,  therefore,  be  recognized  that  while  woman's  suffrage 
may  be  called  an  experiment,  if  it  be  once  granted,  it  ceases  that 
instant  to  be  experimental ;  but  becomes,  for  better  or  worse,  an 
unalterable  fact  in  political  life,  with  probable  consequences  far 
too  serious  to  make  the  thought  of  the  experiment  even  tolerable, 
not  to  say  prudent. 

Thus,  for  every  reason,  both  positive  and  negative,  the 
claims  of  woman's  suffrage  are  unsound,  and  ought  to  be  re- 
sisted. 

Century.  48:  613-23.  August,  1894. 

Wrongs  and  Perils  of  Woman  Suffrage.    J.  M.  Buckley. 

The  pending  proposal  to  extend  the  suffrage  to  women  im- 
poses upon  men  the  duty  of  deciding  whether  to  retain  power 
where  it  was  lodged  by  the  founders  of  existing  governments, 
or  to  make  women  eligible  to  vote  and  hold  office  upon  the  same 
terms  as  men. 

Disfranchised  Classes. 
With  inconsiderable  exceptions,  the  common  sense  of  the 
human  race,  as  expressed  in  civil  government,  has  confined  its 
prerogatives  to  men.  When  necessary  to  preserve  an  unbroken 
line  in  hereditary  monarchies,  women  have  been  invested  with 
sovereignty.  In  some  communities,  where  property  qualifications 
exist,  they  possess  a  limited  right  to  vote,  and  to  hold  minor  ' 
executive  offices. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  221 

To  portray  an  idiot,  a  criminal  in  prison  garb,  an  Indian  in 
barbaric  finery,  a  lunatic  staring  in  frenzy,  and  a  woman  whose 
.  features  indicate  intelligence  and  refinement,  and  to  entitle  the 
representation,  "American  Woman  and  her  Political  Peers," 
may  beguile  the  unwary,  but  others  will  ask,  Does  the  picture 
include  all  disfranchised  classes?  and,  Is  their  exclusion  from 
the  suffrage  for  similar  reasons? 

It  does  not  include  all.  To  complete  the  picture,  might  be 
added  a  portrait  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  who,  at  the  appear- 
ance of  trouble  between  Great  Britain  and  the  Colonies,  when 
he  was  still  a  school-boy  barely  eighteen  years  of  age,  wrote 
a  series  of  papers  in  defense  of  the  rights  of  the  Colonies 
which  were  at  first  taken  for  the  production  of  Jphn  Jay ;  and 
who,  when  only  twenty, — and  consequently  not  allowed  to  vote,—' 
was  aide-de-camp  to  Washington. 

There  would  also  'be  needed  a  portrait  of  one  of  the  dis- 
tinguished foreigners  who,  after  a  study  of  the  constitution  of 
this  country,  have  adopted  it  as  their  own,  and  yet,  after  ar- 
living,  are  disfranchised  for  a  term  of  years. 

Foreigners  are  disfranchised  for  a  period  of  time  assumed  to 
be  long  enough  for  men  of  average  ability  to  comprehend  the 
institutions  and  interests,  and  to  identify  themselves  therewith 
sufficiently  to  "have  a  stake  in  the  country" ;  criminals  are  not 
allowed  to  vote  because,  being  foes  to  society  and  to  the  govern-^ 
ment,  they  have  forfeited  all  claim  to  personal  and  political 
liberty ;  insane  persons  and  idiots  are  debarred,  being  incom- 
petent to  understand;  Indians,  on  account  of  their  tribal  claims 
to  an  independent  sovereignty,  and  other  causes  peculiar  to  them- 
selves ;  Chinamen,  because  forbidden  naturalization.  Young 
men  under  twenty-one  years  of  age  are  not  permitted  to  vote 
because  it?  is  assumed  that  the  average  male  has  not  the  knowl- 
edge and  stability  of  character  wisely  to  exercise  the  franchise' 
until  he  has  had  twenty-one  years  of  life  in  the  land  of  his 
birth. 

"Woman  is  not  refused  admission  to  the  suffrage  on  any  of 
these!  grounds.  The  picture  is  not  true  to  life,  and  the  ideas 
which  it  is  designed  to  suggest  confuse  rather  than  elucidate 
the  question  whether  women  should'be  eligible  to  vote,  and  hold 
cfhbe,  upon  the  same  terms  as  men.         " 


222  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Whether  the  suffrage  shall  be  conferred  upon  any  class  of 
men  or  women  cannot  be  decided  exclusively  upon  the  question 
of  natural  rights.  These  do,  indeed,  require  the  protection  of 
all  in  the  enjoyment  of  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness, 
so  long  as  the  same  are  exercised  in  a  manner  compatible  with 
the  rights  of  others.  The  arrival  of  a  second  man  upon  a 
desert  island  would  necessitate  a  whole  series  of  compromises 
which,  if  not  accepted,  would  result  in  the  abject  submission  of 
the  weaker,  his  flight,  or  war  to  the  death. 

In  this  country  it  is  agreed  that  the  majority  of  voters  shall 
rule.  What  fundamental  principle  gives  to  two  millions  the  ab- 
solute right  to  ruk  over  two  millions  less  one?  As-  at  the  age 
of  seventeen .  some  are  better  qualified  for  the  suffrage  than 
many  at  forty,  what  absolute  natural  right  decrees  that  none 
shall  exercise  the  franchise  until  twenty-one  years  old?  These, 
and  many  other  provisions,  are  compromises  to  which  the  people 
submit  for  the  sake  of  the  results.  Should  a  citizen  change  his 
residence  from  one  state  to  another,  he  must  remain  there  a 
specified  time  before  he  can  vote;  nor  could  he,  one  day  after 
legally  changing  his  residence,  return  and  cast  a  ballot  where  he 
had  lived  all  his  life.  If  born  in  Canada,  though  brought  over 
the  line  when  an  infant,  he  could  never  become  president.  Also, 
every  citizen  must  vote  at  such  times  and  places  as  the  law 
prescribes.  Nor  can  one  unavoidably  detained  from  his  legal 
residence,  even  in  the  service  of  the  country,  as  in  the  army  and 
nayy,  or  in  the  federal  Congress,  demand  a  subsequent  oppor- 
tunity, or  be  permitted  to  deposit  a  sealed  ballot  in  advance  of 
the  time,  forward  the  same  or  vote  by  proxy. 

Foundations  of  Society. 

An  advocate  of  woman  suffrage  declares  that  its  opponents 
''must  show  that  it  is  incompatible  either  with  the  best  concep- 
tion of  the  state,  or  with  the  nature  of  womanhood."  While  the 
burden  of  proof  should  rest  upon  those  who  would  change  the 
universal  practice,  I  hold,  and  will  present  the  grounds  for  the 
belief,  that  to  impose  direct  responsibility  in  this  particular  upon 
women  is  incompatible  with  the  nature  of  womanhood,  and  with 
the  best  conception  of  the  st^te. 

There  is  a  feminine,  as  well  as  a  masculine,  soul ;  a  spiritual 
sex,  as  well  as  a  corporeal. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  223 

Frederick  Harrison,  in  contrasting  men  and  women,  justly 
says,  "Not  one  man  in  ten  can  compare  with  the  average  woman 
in  tact,  subtlety  of  observation,  in  refinement  of  mental  habit, 
in  rapidity,  agility,  and  sympathetic  touch ;  in  sudden  movement, 
in  perseverance,  in  passive  endurance,  in  dealing  with  the  min- 
utest surroundings  of  comfort,  grace,  and  convenience."  He 
predicates  of  man,  as  distinguished  from  woman,  "a  greater 
capacity  for  prolonged  attention,  intense  abstraction,  wide  range, 
extraordinary  complication,  immense  endurance,  intensity,  variety, 
and  majesty  of   will." 

From  the  same  difference  arise  the  virtues  and  vices,  re- 
spectively, of  the  sexes,  modified  by  different  degrees  of  physical 
strength. 

li  there  be  no  such  feminine  nature  as  distinguished  from 
the  masculine;  if  the  abstraction  of  the  mental  and  spiritual 
elements  peculiar  to  woman,  and  their  being  replaced  by  those 
characteristic  of  man,  would  make  no  radical  and  harmful  differ- 
ence in  the  constitution  of  society,  there  is  no  reason  for  ex- 
empting women  from  the  responsibilities  of  government. 

.  On  closely  considering  the  state,  it  appears  that  the  funda- 
mental fact  is  not  most  frequently  the  subject  of  discussion. 
The  political  economist  occasionally  refers  to  it,  the  statesman 
and  legislator  deal  with  a  few  of  its  phases,  it  is  seen  more 
frequently  in  the  courts,  and  asserts  itself  in  various  details 
in  a  thousand  forms,  but  it  is  seldom  comprehended  as  a  whole. 
That  fact  is  that  the  individuals  who  form  the  state  are  constant- 
ly changing,  are  proceeding,  in  fact,  across  the  earth,  finally 
disappearing,  rather  than  permanently  domiciled  upon  it. 
Nevertheless,  the  state  endures  because  there  are  constantly 
fresh  arrivals  through  the  families  into  which  society  is  divided. 
The  state  direct^  takes  no  cognizance  of  these  immature  beings, 
who,  though  human,  are  without  strength  or  understanding. 
Their  parents  are  their  rulers,  responsible  for  their  support,  and 
exercising  the  prerogatives  of  government,  issuing  mandates, 
requiring  submission ;  permitted  to  chastise,  imprison,  and  to 
-direct  their  actions  in  numberless  ways.  It  depends  upon  the 
parents  to  train  them  in  such  a  manner  as  to  qualify  them  for 
the  duties  of  citizenship,  according  to  the  statutes  and  laws  of  the 
land.     Only   when   parents   are   incapable   or   unwilling   to   dis- 


2^24  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

charge  their  responsibilities  does  the  state  take  cognizance  of 
the  situation.  In  proportion  as  this  state  within  a  state  is  main- 
tained in  its  integrity  is  the  nation  strong,  happy,  and  prosperous. 
It  is  the  fountain  of  private,  and  the  source  of  public,  morality. 

Whatever  may  be  said  of  a  few  minds  of  a  peculiar  structure, 
lifelong  partnerships  for  better  or  worse  could  not  be  maintained 
by  two  natures  of  the  same  kind,  debating  all  questions  in  the 
same  plane,  with  no  natural  predominating  tendency.  The  co- 
herence and  permanence  of  the  family  depend  upon  the  differ- 
ence in  the  mental  and  emotional  constitution  of  men  and  wom- 
en. The  family  is  a  union  of  two  manifestations  of  a  common 
human  nature,  masculine  and  feminine  of  soul  as  well  as  body; 
molding,  governing,  and  guiding  the  children,  each  after  its  own 
manner,  and  diffusing  through  society  the  blended  influence  of 
wife,  mother,  daughter,  sister,  and  husband,  father,  son,  and 
brother. 

The  bearing  of  these  principles  upon  the  relations  of  wives 
and  mothers  to  the  suffrage  is  that  to  govern  in  the  state  would 
unfit  woman  for  her  position  in  the  family. 

Tt  is  mere  sophism  to  say  that  the  simple  dropping  of  a  pi^ece 
of  paper  into  a  ballot-box  could  not  produce  such  a  result. 
Unless  women  are  to  be  treated  like  children,  and  furnished 
with  the  ballot  by  men,  it  is  not  the  mere  dropping  of  a  piece  of 
paper,  for  it  implies  the  whole  mode  of  thinking,  feeling,  and 
acting,  o.f  which  a  vote  is  the  concentrated  expression.  "The 
vote  is  the  expression  of  government ;  voting  is  governing."  To 
vote  intelligently  is  to  think  and  act  in  the  imperative  mood ; 
and  to  be  qualified  as  voters,  girls  must  be  trained  to  think, 
feel,  and  act  in  the  spirit  of  boys. 

To  void  the  force  of  this,  it  would  be  necessary  to  show 
that  women  will  not  be  affected  in  this  way,  or  that,  should  they 
be,  no  harm  will  result.  John  Stuart  Mill  admits  that  it  will 
produce  this  effect,  and  asserts  that  women  are  held  "in  sub- 
jection" in  the  family,  and  should  be  emancipated.  Wendell 
Phillips  said,  "No  one  can  foresee  the  effect;  therefore  the  only 
way  is  to  plunge  in."  Others  affirm  that  "under  all  possible  cir- 
cumstances feminine  instincts  will  preserve  woman."  "Plunging 
in"  without  a  high  probability  that  the  effect  will  be  good  is 
never  wise,  except  when  destruction  impends  over  the  existing 
situation. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  225 

To  assume  that  either  men  or  women  will  remain  unchanged 
in  their  intellectual,  moral,  and  emotional  susceptibilities,  what- 
ever their  situation,  is  contrary  'to  the  facts  of  evolution,  en- 
vironment, and  culture.  In  countless  individual  cases,  and  even 
in  nations,  woman  has  shown  a  capacity  to  rise  or  fall,  a  sus- 
ceptibility to  moral  and  intellectual  modifications  not  surpassed, 
if  equaled,  by  men. 

Not  only  would  the  governing  spirit  become  a  part  of  her 
character,  greatly  obstructing  the  discharge  of  the  duties  of 
home,  but  it  would  make  her  position  there  an  insupportable  re- 
straint. Man  is  naturally  self-reliant;  woman  may,  in  an  emer- 
gency, develop  self-reliance  and  complete  independence ;  but  is 
naturally  disposed  either  to  coalesce  in  the  determining  tendency 
of  her  husband,  or  to  control  it  by  persuasion.  Imbued  with  the 
governing  spirit,  she  will  become  as  restive  in  her  position  as 
would  he  if  similarly  placed.  This  is  avowed  by  many  advocates 
of  woman  suffrage,  and  held  up  as  a  result  to  be  desired.  The 
more  consistent  go  fearlessly  to  the  end,  and  define  marriage 
as  a  civil  contract  to  be  terminated  at  the  will  of  either  party, 
and  society  as  a  collection  of  independent  units  instead  of  an 
assemblage  of  families. 

That  there  are  exceptions  to  the  ideal  family,  here  assumed 
as  the  nucleus  of  society,  is  true.  Some  women  rule  their  hus- 
bands ;  a  larger  number  through  the  misfortune,  weakness,  or 
wickedness  of  the  husband  are  obliged  to  support  the  family, 
and  there  are  many  single  women  and  widows.  These  excep- 
tions to  the  general  law  often  have  much  to  bear;  but  not  so 
much  as  to  justify  the  overthrow  of  the  whole  structure  with  a 
view  to  rebuild  upon  exceptions.  Every  female  child  must  be 
presumed  eligible  to  wifehood  and  motherhood ;  therefore  the 
whole  sex  should  be  left  to  the  exercise  of  that  kind  of  in- 
fluence for  which  their  nature  and  relation  to  the  family  qualify 
them,  and  which  is  required  in  the  interest  of  society. 

An  argument  drawn  from  exceptions  may  be  very  plausibly 
affirmed.  Suppose  a  movement  to  enact  a  law  requiring  the 
training  of  all  children  in  public  institutions.  In  its  support  it 
might  be  maintained  that  there  are  numerous  orphans,  that 
many  children  have  lost  one  parent,  and  that  many  parents  are 
cruel,    intemperate,    incompetent,    or    unfaithful;    that    relatively 


226  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

few  feel,  and  conscientiously  and  intelligently  discharge,  their 
responsibilities.  These  propositions  are  indisputable :  how  then 
shall  the  scheme  to  require  all  children  to  be  educated  by  the 
state  be  shown  to  be  untenable?  Only  by  affirming  that  the  gen- 
eral law  of  nature  is  that  parents  must  be  responsible  for  their 
offspring.  To  remove  the  children  of  those  willing  and  able 
to  train  them,  because  of  these  exceptions,  would  be  cruel  and 
unjust;  and  such  a  wholesale  destruction  of  home  life  is  not 
necessary,  because  the  general  rule  is  that  parents,  with  all  their 
imperfections,  do  train  their  children  in  a  manner  better  adapted 
to  promote  the  public  weal  than  is  any  institutional  training. 
Individual  exceptions  must  be  cared  for  by  private  philanthropy, 
or  by  special  statutes  which  are  compatible  with  the  effectual 
working  of  the  general  law. 

The  same  method  of  reasoning  vindicates  the  conclusion 
that  the  general  law  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  family 
should  not  be  overthrown  in  order  that  unmarried  women  and 
widows  might  be  introduced  into  political  life. 

Nor  would  a  specific  statute  admitting  single  women  to  the 
suffrage,  and  excluding  married  women  therefrom,  be  ex- 
pedient or  right;  for  then  another  evil  of  stupendous  propor- 
tions would  result,  namely:  the  putting  of  a  premium  upon  the 
unmarried  or  childless  condition,  since  such  women  would  have 
much  more  time  and  strength  for  the  political  arena  than  wives 
and  mothers,  and  could  gain  many  more  personal,  pecuniary,  and 
political  advantages. 

Notable  Reversals  of  Opinion. 

It  was  a  deep  and  serious  consideration  of  these  things 
which  lead  some  of  the  greatest  of  men  to  reverse  their  opinions 
after  having  been  strongly  in  favor  of  woman  suffrage,  or  in- 
clined to  espouse  it. 

Horace  Bushnell,  when  assured  that  the  principles  of  prog- 
ress which  he  had  adopted  required  him  to  support  woman  suf- 
frage, reopened  the  question.  After  protracted  thought  he  was 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  it  would  be  "a  reform  against 
nature." 

John  Bright,  the  patriot,  the  tried  and  valued  friend  of  every 
movement    for    the    general    benefit    of    woman,    accustomed    to 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  227 

equality  of  women  in  Friends'  meetings,  was  one  of  those  who 
on  May  20,  1867,  voted  in  favor  of  Mr.  Mill's  amendment  to 
strike  out  of  a  reform  bill  the  word  man,  and  insert  the  word 
person.  Nine  years  afterward,  namely,  in  March,  1876,  he  spoke 
against  the  enfranchisement  of  women.  When  charged  with 
having  changed  his  opinions,  he  said  that  he  gave  Mr.  Mill  the 
benefit  of  the  doubt,  and  sympathized  with  him  in  his  courageous 
stand,  and  in  a  letter  published  in  "The  Woman  Question  in 
Europe,"  by  Theodore  Stanton,  he  wrote : 

I  cannot  give  you  all  the  reasons  for  the  view  I  take^  but  I 
act  from  the  belief  that  to  introduce  women  into  the  strife  of 
political  life  would  be  a  great  evil  to  them,  and  that  to  our  own 
sex  no  possible  good  could  arise.  When  women  are  not  safe 
under  the  charge  or  care  of  fathers,  husbands,  brothers,  and 
sons,  it  is  the  fault  of  our  non-civilization,  and  not  of  our 
laws.  As  civilization  founded  on  Christian  principles  advances, 
women  will  gain  all  that  is  right  for  them  to  have,  though  they 
are  not  seen  contending  in  the  strife  of  political  parties. 

To  this  he  adds  personal  testimony: 

In  my  experience  I  have  observed  evil  results  to  many  women 
who  have  entered  hotly  into  political  conflict  and  discussion.  I 
would   save   them   from   it.         I   am   respectfully   yours, 

JOHN    BRIGHT. 

Goldwin  Smith  is  also  one  of  those  who  voted  with  Mr.  Mill, 
He  was  led  to  change  his  opinion  by  considerations  similar  to 
those  adduced  by  Mr.  Bright,  and  adds  that  another  important 
reason  was  that  he  found  "that  those  women  whom  he  had  al- 
ways regarded  as  the  best  representatives  of  their  sex  among  his 
acquaintances  were  by  no  means  in  favor  of  the  change." 

Herbert  Spencer,  in  "Justice,"  renounces  his  former  position, 
and  maintains  that  there  are  fundamental  reasons  for  keeping 
the  spheres  of  the  sexes  distinct.  He  had  formerly  argued  the 
matter  "from  the  point  of  view  of  a  general  principle  of  indi- 
vidual rights,"  but  he  finds  that  this  cannot  be  sustained,  as  he 
"discovers  mental  and  emotional  differences  between  the  sexes, 
which  disqualify  women  for  the  burdens  of  government  and  the 
exercise  of  its  functions." 

Mr.  Gladstone,  who  had  -sometimes  spoken  as  though  he 
thought  the  change  might  have  more  to  be  said  in  its  favor  than 
against  it,  was  appealed  to  two  years  ago  in  the  most  desperate 
crisis  of  his  life  by  -those  women  in  England  who  demand  the 
suffrage   offering   their   support   if    he   would   avow   himself   in 


228  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

favor  of  the  principle.  He  sat  down  to  investigate  it  in  the 
light  of  the  bill  then  proposed  in  parliament,  "Extending  Parlia- 
mentary Suffrage  to  Women,"  but  confined  to  unmarried  women, 
and  after  pointing  out  the  impropriety  of  that  proposal  says : 

I  speak  of  the  change  as  beirg  a  fundamental  change  in  the 
whole  social  function  of  woman,  because  I  am  bound  in  consider- 
ing this  bill  to  take  into  view  not  only  what  it  enacts,  but  what 
it  involves.  ...  It  proposes  to  place  the  individual  woman  on  the 
same  footing  in  regard  to  Farliamentary  elections  as  the  indi- 
vidual man.  She  is  to  vote,  she  is  to  propose  or  nominate,  sue 
is  to  be  designated  by  the  law  as  competent  to  use  and  to  direct, 
with  advantag9  not  only  to  the  community  but  to  herself,  all 
those  public  agencies  which  belong  to  our  system  of  parliamen- 
tary representation.  She — not  the  individual  woman  marked 
by  special  tastes,  possessed  of  special  gifts,  but  the  woman  as 
such — is  by  these  changes  to  be  plenarily  launched  into  the  whirl- 
.  pool  of  public  life,  such  as  it  is  in  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
such  as  it  is  tO'  be  in  the  twentieth  century.  ...  A  permanent 
and  vast  difference  of  type  has  been  impressed  upon  woman  and 
man  respectively  by  the  Maker  of  both.  Their  differences  of 
social  office  rest  mainly  upon  causes  not  flexible  and  elastic  like 
most  mental  qualities,  but  physical  and  in  their  nature  unchange- 
able. I,  for  one,  am  not  prepared  to  say  which  of  the  two 
classes  has  the  higher,  and  which  the  other,  province,  but  I 
recognize  the  subtle  and  profound  character  of  the  difference  be- 
tween them.  ...  I  am  not  without  fear  lest,  beginning  with  the 
state,  we  should  eventually  have  been  found  to  have  intruded 
into  what  is  yet  more  fundamental  and  sacred,  the  precinct  of 
the  family,  and  should  dislocate  or  injuriously  modify  the  re]a- 
tions  of  dO'mesfic  life.  .  .  .  As  this  is  not  a  party  question,  or  a 
class  question,  so  neither  is  it  a  sex  question.  I  have  no  lear 
lest  the  woman  should  encroach  upon  the  power  of  the  man; 
the  fear  I  have  is  lest  we  should  invite  her  unwittingly  to  tres- 
pass upon  the  delicacy,  the  purity,  the  refinement,  the  e.evation 
of  her  own  nature,  which  are  the  present  sources  of  its  power. 

I  admit  that  in  the  universities,  in  the  professions,  m  the  sec- 
ondary circles  of  public  action  we  have  already  gone  so  far  as 
to  give  a  shadow  of  plausibility  to  the  present  proposals  to  go 
farther;  but  it  is  a  shadow  only,  for  we  have  done  nothing  thai 
plunges   the  woman  as   such   into   the  turmoil   of  masculine   life. 

Upon  Bishop  John  H.  Vincent,  the  fotmder  of  Chautauqua, 
the  consideration  of  this  subject  has  naturally  been  forced,  and 
to  it  he  has  given  years  of  reflection,  closely  following  the  in- 
fluence of  modern  general  and  higher  education  upon  society, 
and  in  particular  upon  the  home.  In  former  years  he  was  an  ad- 
vocate of  v^oman  suffrage ;  but  though  enthusiastically  devoted 
to  the  spread  of  knowledge,  and  having  distributed  diplomas  to 
thousands  of  women  who  have  pursued  the  extended  course 
of  reading  of  the  Chautauqua  Literary  and  Scientific  Circle,  he 
has  been  compelled  to  reverse  his  attitude.  In  response  to  a  re- 
quest for  a  concise  statement  of  the  grotuids  which  led  to  the 
change  of  his.  views,  I  received  the  letter  which  appears : 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  229 

When  about  thirty  years  of  age  I  accepted  for  a  time  the 
doctrine  of  woman  suffrage,  and  publicly  defended  it.  Years  of 
wide  and  careful  observation  have  convinced  me  that  the  demand 
for  woman  suffrage  in  America  is  without  foundation  in  equity, 
and,  if  successful,  must  prove  harmful  to  American  society.  I 
find  some  worthy  women  defending  it,  but  the  majority  of  our 
best  women,  especially  our  most  intelligent,  domestic,  and  godly 
mothers,  neither  ask  for  nor  desire  it.  The  instinct  of  mother- 
hood is  against  it.  The  basal  conviction  of  our  best  manhood  is 
against  it.  The  movement  is  at  root  a  protest  against  the  rep- 
resentative relations  and  functions  by  virtue  of  which  each  sex 
depends  upon  and  is  exalted  by  the  other.  This  theory  and  policy, 
tending  to  the  subversion  of  the  natural  and  divine  order,  must 
make  man  less  a  man",  and  woman  less  a  woman.  A  distinguished 
woman  advocate  of  this  suffrage  movement  says,  "We  need  the 
ballot  to  protect  us  against  men."  When  one  sex  is  compelled 
thus  to  protect  itself  against  the  other  the  foundations  of  so- 
ciety are  already  crumbling.  Woman  now  makes  man  what  he 
is.  She  controls  him  as  babe,  boy,  manly  son,  brother,  lover, 
husband,  father.  Her  influence  is  enormous.  If  she  use  it  wise- 
ly, she  needs  no  additional  power.  If  she  abuse  her  opportunity, 
she  deserves  no  additional  responsibility.  Her  womanly  weight, 
now  without  measure,  will  be  limited  to  the  value  of'  a  single 
ballot,  and  her  control  over  from  two  to  five  additional  votes 
forfeited. 

The  curse  of  America  to-day  is  in  the  dominated  partizan 
vote — the  vote  of  ignorance  and  superstition.  Shall  we  help  mat- 
ters by  doubling  this  dangerous  mass?  Free  from  the  direct 
complications  and  passions  of  the  political  arena,  the  best  women 
may  exert  a  conservative  and  moral  influence  over  men  as  voters. 
Force  her  down  into  the  same  bad  atmosphere,  and  both  man 
and  woman  must  inevitably  suffer  incalculable  loss.  We  know 
what  woman  can  be  in  the  "commune,"  in  "riots,"  and  on  the 
"rostrum." 

Woman  can,  through  the  votes  of  men,  have  every  right  to 
which  she  is  entitled.  All  she  has  man  has  gladly  given  her.  It 
is  his  glory  to  represent  her.  To  rob  him  of  this  right  is  to 
weaken  both.  He  and  she  are  just  now  in  danger  through  his 
mistaken    courtesy. 

JOHN    H.    VINCENT. 

Affirmative  Arguments  Weighed. 

The  previous  considerations,  if  well  founded,  will  be  sufficient 
to-  deter  every  thoughtful  citizen  who  believes  the  family  to  be 
the  foitndation  and  safeguard  of  all  that  is  valuable  in  civiliza- 
tion from  attempting  an  experiment  so  dangerous ;  yet  an  ex- 
amination of  the  popular  phrases  relied  upon  to  prepare  the 
way  for  the  plunge  seems  necessary. 

It  is  alleged  that  ''it  is  obviously  fair  and  right  that  those 
who  obey  the  laws  should  have  a  voice  m  making  them ;  that  all 
who  pay  the  tax^s  should  have  a  voice  in  levying  them;  and 
that  men  cannot  represent  women  until  women  shall  have  legally 
consented  to  it,  and  this  they  have  never  done." 

.  -But  if  it  is  better  to  exempt  them   from  the   responsibilities 
of  government,  that  the  influence  which  they  are  naturally  quali- 


230  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

fied  to  exert,  and  which  is  -essential  to  the  well-being  of  society^ 
may  not  be  diminished,  it  would  not  be  "fair  and  right"  to 
give  women  the  same  kind  of  voice  in  making  laws  that  men 
have.  Woman's  influence  in  forming  the  characters  and  princ- 
iples of  the  law-makers  insures  care  for  her. 

"No  taxation  without  representation"  as  an  abstract  principle 
is  just,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  the  representation  must  be 
identical.  The  authors  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the 
framers  of  the  Massachusetts  Bill  of  Rights,  did  not  perceive 
any  incongruity  between  declaring  that  "all  men  are  born  free 
and  equal,"  that  there  should  be  "no  taxation  without  represen- 
tation," that  "governments  derive  their  just  powers  from'  the 
consent  of  the  governed,"  and  at  the  same  time  relieving  women 
from  the  responsibility  and  burdens  of  government.  Taxation 
is  not  levied  upon  the  property  of  men  and  women  respectively 
upon  different  principles,  but  upon  property  as  such  by  whom- 
soever held. 

The  property  rights  of  woman  are  better  protected  now  then 
they  could  be  if  she  were  actively  engaged  in  politics.  Not  long 
since,  a  lady  of  rare  intelligence,  arguing  in  favor  of  the  suffrage, 
stated  that  it  was  proposed  to  pave  a  street  in  which  she  lived, 
contrary  to  the  judgment  and  wishes  of  the  property-holders, 
most  of  whom'  were  widows  and  single  women.  She  attributed 
the  scheme  to  "recklessness  on  the  part  of  men,  most  of  whom 
paid  no  taxes.  Had  she  and  her  friends  been  able  to  vote,  such 
a  thing  would  not  have  been  attempted,"  When  asked  concerning 
the  outcome,  the  response  was  that  she  and  a  few  other  in- 
terested women  "went  to  the  leaders  of  both  parties,  and  easily 
persuaded  them  to  defeat  the  proposition."  She  did  not  appear 
to  perceive  that  if  she  had  been  a  voter  her  influence  would  have 
been  confined  to  members  of  her  own  party. 

Should  it  be  said  that  this  principle,  if  admitted,  would  justify 
slavery,  it  may  be  fairly  replied  that  the  motive  of  slavery  was 
self-aggrandizement  by  individuals,  its  method  the  violent  re- 
straint of  personal  liberty.  But  the  motive  which  relieves  woman 
from  government  is  the  belief  that  the  exercise  of  the  suffrage 
by  her  will  work  an  injury  to  .herself  and  to  the  family,  and 
thereby  to  the  state.  -      ^  ^y]% 

The  proposition  that  men  cannot  Fepresent  women  until  they 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  '      231 

have  legally  consented  to  it  is  specious,  but  not  sound.  Who  has 
ever  been  asked  whether  he  consents  to  the  government  that  ex- 
ists here?  That  government  was  established  before  the  present  in- 
habitants were  born.  Under  it  the  supreme  power  inheres  in 
adult  male  citizens.  The  consent  of  the  governed  is  and  must  be 
taken  for  granted,  except  as  changes  are  made  by  constitutional 
methods,  until  a  revolution  arises.  Then  all  questions  sink  out 
of  sight  save  this,  "Shall  the  government  stand?"  and  that  ques- 
tion must  be  decided  by  the  arbitrament  of  war. 

It  is  affirmed  that  "capacity  indicates  sphere ;  woman  has  a 
capacity  to  vote  intelligently,  therefore  she  should  be  empowered 
to  do  so,"  and  that  "the  dignity  and  authority  of  the  ballot  would 
increase  her  influence  as  it  does  that  of  man."  There  are  various 
acts  for  which  woman  has  the  ability  that  she  should  not  be 
asked  or  compelled  by  the  law  to  perform.  If  it  be  said,  Why 
not  leave  the  question  to  her  judgment  and  instincts?  it  is  be- 
cause the  qualifications  of  voters  must  be  prescribed  by  law. 
If  the  population  of  the  globe  consisted  exclusively  of  men  or 
women,  to  confer  the  ballot  upon  any  who  had  been  without  it 
would  increase  their  dignity  and  authority.  But  since  it  is  com- 
posed of  both,  and  woman's  influence  is  not  derived  from  author- 
ity, or  her  true  dignity  symbolized  by  the  ballot,  the  clenched 
fist,  or  the  drawn  sword,  it  would  add  nothing  to  her  power. 

The  claim  is  made  that  "woman  suffrage  has  worked  bene- 
ficially wherever  tried."  It  was  tried  in  New  Jersey.  On  July 
2,  1776,  the  provincial  assembly  conferred  the  suffrage  upon 
women ;  in  1797  seventy-five  women  voted,  and  in  the  presidential 
election  of  1800  a  large  number  availed  themselves  of  the  privi- 
lege. At  first  the  law  was  construed  to  admit  single  women 
only,  but  afterward  it  was  made  to  include  females  eighteen 
years  old,  married  or  single,  without  distinction  of  race.  In 
the  spring  of  1807  a  special  election  was  held  in  Essex  County 
to  decide  on  the  location  of  the  courthouse  and  jail.  Newark 
and  vicinity  struggled  to  retain  the  county  buildings,  Elizabeth- 
town  to  remove  them.  The  contest  waxed  warm,  and,  according 
to  a  paper  on  "The  Origin,  Practice,  and  Prohibition  of  Female 
Suffrage  in  New  Jersey,"  read  by  the  Hon.  William  A.  White- 
head, Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  New  Jersey  Historical 
Society, 


:232  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

It  was  soon  found,  though  only  women  of  full  age,  possessing 
the  required  property  qualittcation,  were  permitted  by  judges  of 
election  to  vote,  that  every  married  woman  in  the  country  was 
not  only  of  "full  age,"  but  also  "worth  fifty  pounds  proclama- 
tion money  clear  estate,"  and  as  such  entitled  to  vote  if  they 
chose.  And  not  only  once,  but  as  often  as,  by  change  of  dress 
or  complicity  of  the  inspectors,  they  might  be  able  to  repeat  the 
process.    .    .    . 

In  Acquackanonk  township,  thought  to  contain  about  three 
hundred  voters,  over  eighteen  hundred  votes  were  polled,  all  but 
seven  in   the   interest  of  Newark. 

One  woman  voted  three  times.  Her  name  was  Mary  John 
son,  and  she  cast  her  first  vote  under  that  name.  Afterward,  as 
a  somewhat  stouter-looking  woman,  she  voted  as  Mary  Still,  nnd 
later  in  the  day  as  a  corpulent  person  whose  name  was  Mary 
Yet.  The  legislature  set  aside  the  election  as  fraudulent,  and 
the  whole  state  was  so  disgusted  that  an  act  was  passed  restrict- 
ing the  suffrage  to  white  male  citizens  twenty-one  years  of  age. 

It  was  tried  in  Utah.  Introduced  by  the  Mormons,  who  de 
signed  by  it  to  maintain  their  ascendancy  over  the  Gentiles,  the 
women  supported  not  only  polygamy  wherever  they  had  an  op- 
portunity, but  anything  else  suggested  by  the  Mormon  hierarchy 
On  March  22,  1882,  the  federal  Congress  passed  an  act  deciding 
that  no  polygamist,  or  any  woman  cohabiting  with  such,  could 
take  part  in  any  election.  This  left  the  wives  of  monogamists, 
and  unmarried  women,  in  possession  of  their  vote ;  but  the 
Edmunds-Tucker  bill,  designed  to  destroy  polygamy,  by  a  fed 
eral  law,  February  9,  1887,  withdrew  the  suffrage  from  hU 
women  in  Utah. 

''It  has  been  tried  in  the  great  state  of  Wyoming,  where 
it  has  worked  so  beneficially  that  the  legislature  has  unanimouslv 
adopted  a  resolution  of  commendation." 

The  entire  population  of  the  state  of  Wyoming,  according! 
to  the  census  of  1890,  is  only  60,705,  of  which  39,343  are  males 
and  21,362  females.  The  largest  city  is  Cheyenne,  with  a  popu 
lation  of  11,690,  and  the  next,  Laramie,  which  has  6,388.  Be- 
sides these  there  was  only  one  town  with  a  population  of  mo^^ 
than  3,000,  and  only  one  with  more  than  two  and  less  th  .r; 
three,  and  only  four  with  more  than  1,000  and  less  than  two 
Of  the  population  of  the  state,  16,291  are  between  five  -"n'^ 
twenty  years  of  age,  and  there  are  only  27,044  males  of  vof  t;  .< 
age  in  the  state;  and  this  sparse  population  is  scattered  ovet  .^'- 
area  twice  that  of  the  state  of  New  York.     According  to  judii  - 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  233^ 

Cary  of  Wyoming  the  women  consist  of  less  than  twenty  per 
cent,  of  the  voting  population.  "Usually  about  half  of  them  go. 
to  the  polls." 

The  complacency  with  w^hich  the  legislature  unanimously 
praises  itself  and  its  constituents  has  often  been  paralleled,  but 
in  the  absence  of  details  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  the  best: 
testimony  of  which  the  case  admits.  None  of  the  questions, 
comprehended  in  the  government  of  dense  populations  and  vast 
cities  is  brought  to  the  test.  Citizens  so  generally  isolated  are- 
practically  a  law  to  themselves.  Pauperism  would  not  be  likely 
to  exist  under  such  conditions ;  vice  in  many  sections  could  be 
practised  without  attracting  attention ;  crowds  at  elections,  m 
the  absence  of  people  enough  to  make  a  crowd,  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  assemble.  Unless  the  state  has  been  grossly  slandered 
various  troubles  have  occurred  within  a  few  years  approximating 
the  gravity  of  civil  war.  There  is  no  unusual  restraint  upon  the 
sale  of  liquor,  and  little  attention  is  paid  to  enforcing  such  laws- 
as  women  might  be  supposed  to  be  specially  interested  to  main- 
tain. Without  intending  to  reflect  in  a  wholesale  way  upon  the- 
officers  elected  in  that  state,  such  inquiries  as  I  have  made,  witb 
some  observation,  show  that,  as  a  whole,  they  do  not  merit  any 
unusual  eulogium.  But  the  population  is  too  small,  and  the 
conditions  are  too  peculiar,  to  make  the  experiment  of  any  value ; 
nor  is  the  legislative  testimony  of  importance  when  it  is  con- 
sidered that  any  class,  male  or  female,  the  commendation  of 
whose  influence  might  be  under  consideration,  contains  a  suffici- 
ent number  who  would  execute  vengeance  at  the  polls  upon  those- 
who  would  venture  to  take  a  negative  position. 

"Women  are  better  than  men,  and  therefore  would  make^ 
better  laws,  and  would  reform  politics." 

To  show  that  women  are  better  than  men  it  is  customary  to^ 
present  statistics  of  the  number  of  the  sexes  respectively  in 
prisons  and  in  churches.  Undoubtedly  more  than  two  thirds, 
of  the  imprisoned  criminals  of  the  country  are  men,  and  prob- 
ably more  than  two  thirds  of  the  communicants  of  the  churches, 
are  women.  But  that  this  indicates  that  women  are  naturally 
better  than  men  it  is  easier  to  assert  than  to  prove.  The  major- 
ity of  women  are  shielded  and  protected,  while  most  men  lead 
adventurous  lives,  away  from  home.     Men  have  excessive  phys- 


234  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

ical  energy,  which,  frequently  involves  them  in  fierce  conH  <• 
When  they  commit  crimes  they  are  more  likely,  undci  tic 
present  regime,  to  be  convicted;  for  juries  dislike  to  convK*f 
women,  especially  of  crimes  punished  by  long  terms  of  imprs'  ti 
mient  or  death.  Men's  crimes  are  generally  of  violence,  tin  :r 
suit  of  excess,  or  distortion  of  those  natural  charactensrii.^ 
which  in  normal  degree  and  legitimate  use  give  them  the  pcvvi'? 
of  defense  and  aggression.  Women's  abstention  from  cnii»e> 
of  violence  is  due  to  those  characteristics  which  fit  them  tOi 
the  persuasive  influence  which  in  their  normal  condition  tht-v 
exert. 

The  same  differences  affect  their  attendance  at  church  The 
majority  of  church-going  women  spend  their  lives  during  rhr 
week  at  home,  so  that  to  attend  religious  meetings  is  a  pleasant 
variety.  Most  men  spend  their  lives  away  from  home  in  labon 
ous  exercises,  for  which  they  find  little  relief  in  attending  church 
except  when  sustained  by  high  religious  motives.  That  under 
ordinary  circumstances  the  instincts  of  women  would  be  in 
favor  of  good  laws,  there  is  no  doubt ;  but  how  far  their  tern 
peraments  would  aff'ect  the  character  of  special  enactments,  and 
how  far  their  personal  prejudices  and  prepossessions  would 
affect  their  political  action,  are  practical  questions  of  moment. 

"Women  will  always  vote  against  war,  and  thus  put  an  end 
to  it  in  the  world.  They  will  not  send  their  husbands,  brothers, 
fathers,  and  friends  to  the  slaughter." 

Does  history  support  this  statement?  Wherever  there  has 
been  a  war,  women  have  been  as  much  interested  as  men.  They 
have  even  encouraged  their  husbands,  fathers,  brothers,  and 
lovers  to  enlist,  and  would  have  despised  them  if  they  had  not 
In  the  last  war  in  this  country,  the  women  on  both  sides  were 
more  intense  and  irreconcilable  than  the  men. 

It   is   alleged   that   "the   demand   for   the   suffrage   is   the   in 
evitable  consequence  of  the  higher  education." 

This  follows  only  when  the  normal  dissimilarity  in  the  con- 
stitution of  the  sexes — "a  difference  but  not  a  scale  of  inferiority 
or  superiority" — is  ignored  or  underestimated.  The  proper  char- 
acterization  of   such   culture   is   the   lower   education. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  23S 

Insurmountable   Objections. 

The  practical  objections  to  woman  suffrage  can  be  most 
clearly  stated  in  detail. 

Univefsal  suffrage  exists  in  the  United  States,  with  the.  ex- 
ception of  the  classes  hereinbefore  specified.  It  is  an  unreason- 
able expectation  that  this  policy  will  be  changed.  If  women  are 
to  be  admitted  to  the  suffrage,  all  of  sound  mind,  of  legal  age,, 
not  disfranchised  by  the  effect  of  crime  or  other  special  causes- 
applying  equally  to  men,  will  be  entitled  to  vote.  This  will  add. 
the  more  than  three  millions  of  negro  women,  all  naturalized 
women  of  foreign  birth,  all  domestic  servants — in  a  word,  all' 
women  without  respect  to  intelligence,  character,  or  race,  except 
the  Chinese  and  Indians.  In  the.  whole  country  it  will  nearly 
double  the  vote,  and  in  several  states  much  more  than  double- 
it.  Similar  considerations  apply  to  jury  duty,  which  is  a  con- 
comitant of  the  ballot. 

That  the  nation  has  gone  so  far  in  a  dangerous  path  does; 
not  make  it  necessary  to  proceed  farther. 

The  physiological  and  pathological  reasons  for  the  abstention 
of  women  from  political  work  and  excitement  are  not  diminished 
but  increased  by  the  complexity  of  modem  civilization.  Excep- 
tional cases  of  voluntary  endurance  of  physical  and  mental 
strain,  exhibited  by  the  triumph  of  certain  women  in  the  con- 
tests of  scholastic  life,  or  in  bearing  unusual  burdens  in  business, 
should  not  divert  attention  from  the  usual  facts  of  personal  or 
domestic  life,  or  from  the  fact  that  a  large  proportion  of  the- 
best  women  in  youth*  middle  life,  and  age  will  be  unable  to  re- 
spond to  demands  upon  them  at  set  times,  in  storm  or  calm,, 
for  the  different  forms  of  service  involved  in  voting  and  holding 
office,  or  in  securing  the  qualifications  for  the  one  or  the  other. 

Here  and  there  a  physician  may  evoke  smiles  and  compli- 
ments  from  advocates  of  the  suffrage  for  women  by  declaring 
that  he  knows  of  no  anatonlical  or  physiological  impediment  to 
the  assumption  by  women  of  the  duties  of  political  life.  But 
the  medical  faculty  as  a  whole  have  no  sympathy  with  his  sy- 
cophancy, and  the  common  sense  of  the  race,  and  the  observation 
and  experience  of  most  women,  concur  with  them  rather  than 
with  those  w^ho  would  render  legal  and  necessary  the  participa- 


236  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

tion  of  the  whole  sex  in  the  agitations  and  exposures  of  cam- 
paigns and  elections. 

Woman  suffrage  cannot  achieve  what  its  advocates  expect. 
They  think  that  it  will  reform'  public  morals,  close  tlie  saloons 
and  other  places  of  evil  resort,  and  realize  absolute  prudence,, 
honesty,  and  economy  in  management. 

Laws  that  do  not  carry  the  votes  of  a  majority  of  the  men 
of  a  community  cannot  be  executed.  Law-abiding  citizens  re- 
quire no  force  to  induce  obedience ;  but  those  disposed  to  break 
the  law  can  be  compelled  to  keep  it  only  by  force.  There  is  a 
natural  instinct  in  man  which  leads  him  to  submit  to  persuasion 
by  women,  and  to  resist  force  applied  by  them.  It  cannot  be 
eradicated  by  philosophy,  refinement,  or  religion,  and  in  every 
generation  reappears  with  undiminished  vigor.  If  women  were 
admitted  to  political  life,  the  tendency  would  be  for  both  parties 
to  pass  all  kinds  of  laws  to  please  women,  which  would  be.  dead 
letters  unless  they  carried  the  judgment  of  a  majority  of  the 
male  citizens.  In  the  absence  of  this,  to  enforce  them  would 
involve  a  change  in  the  character  of  the  government  in  the  direc- 
tion of  despotism. 

Religious  feuds  zvould  affect  political  life  much  more  than 
under  present  circumstances.  It  is  of  immense  importance  to  the 
welfare  of  this  country  that  the  separation  of  church  and  state 
be  complete.  The  feelings  of  women  upon  the  subject  of  re- 
ligion are  so  intense  that  the  franchise,  in  a  large  majority  of  in- 
stances, would  be  exercised  under  the  power  of  religious  preju- 
dice. John  Bright,  in  one  of  his  most  important  speeches  on 
this  subject,  exclaimed,  "Of  one  thing  there  is  no  doubt:  the 
influence  of  priest,  parson,  and  minister  will  be  greatly  increased 
if  this  measure  is  passed." 

Chivalry,  with  its  refining  influence  over ,  men,  must  pass 
away  when  women  become  politicians.  It  is  not  a  favorable 
portent  that  of  late  it  has  become  customary  for  the  advocates 
of  woman  suffrage  to  disparage  that  chivalrous  feeling  which 
causes  normal  men,  wherever  modern  civilization  exists,  to  treat 
women  with  deference,  and  to  be  ready  to  extend  them  needful, 
aid.  At  present  one  of  the  chief  refining  elements  of  society  is 
the  respect  felt  for  women  as  such  by  men.  Even  those  who 
voluntarily  form  evil  associations  still  esteem  the  ideal  woman. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  2^7 

The  passing  or  decline  of  this  sentiment  is  equally  unfavorable 
to  both ;  for  it  will  accustom  men  to  resist  the  influence  of 
women. 

That  it  will  be  undiminished  when  the  fierce  conflicts  of  party 
politics  are  involved  is  an  unwarranted  hope.  All  special  cour- 
tesy to  women  grows  out  of  the  recognition  of  a  kind  of  in- 
fluence peculiar  to  them,  and  a  dependence  on  their  part  which 
must  be  swept  away  when  they  contend  on  the  same  plane  with 
men  in  the  political  arena.  There  are  many  indications  that  it 
lessens  in  proportion  as  women  come  forward  to  compete  with 
men  in  public  life  and  in  business.  In  the  latter  case  it  is  an 
incidental  result  of  a  necessity;  but  it  will  be  the  natural  con- 
sequence of  a  condition  when  women  appear  in  politics. 

In  England,  when  women  first  appeared  upon  the  hustings, 
they  were  received  with  the  old  chivalry,  but  in  recent  elections, 
the  contest  being  fierce,  all  respect  has  disappeared.  Noted 
women  were  treated  most  disrespectfully  in  the  very  heart  of 
London,  and  people  of  all  parties  agree  that  England  has  never 
seen  so  much  participation  of  women,  or  such  rude  treatment 
of  them,  as  in  the  last  election.  In  Wales  Mrs.  Cornwallis  West 
tried  to  quell  a  disturbance  among  the  electors  who  refused  to 
hear  Colonel  West  speak.  She  obtained  a  momentary  hearing, 
but  the  disorder  revived,  and  she  exclaimed  with  much  heat^ 
"I  am  an  Irish  woman,  but  it  was  not  until  I  came  to  Wales 
that  I  found  men  capable  of  refusing  to  hear  a  woman  who  was 
pleading  a  cause."  She  was  silenced  by  yells  and  hisses,  and 
was  finally  compelled  to  retire  from  the  platform. 

The  introduction  of  women  into  political  life  will  increase 
its  bitterness.  That  politics  create  violent  feuds  is  too  evident 
to  be  questioned.  At  present  they  are  modified  by  the  undis- 
■  turbed  relations  between  the  wives,  mothers,  daughters,  and 
sisters  of  the  combatants.  When  the  struggle  has  been  decided 
at  the  polls,  these  social  relations  serve  to  bring  about  a  calm, 
and  the  resumption  of  personal  harmony.  This  was  admirably 
stated  by  Horace  Bushnell : 

Hitherto  it  has  heen  an  advantage  to  be  going*  into  our  suf- 
frages with  a  full  half,  and  that  (when  left  to  its  normal  en^ 
vironment  and  habits)  the  better  half  morally,  as  a  corps  of 
reserve  left  behind,  so  that  we  may  fall  back  on  this  quiet  ele- 
ment, or  base,  several  times  a  day,  and  always  at  night,  to  recom- 
pense our  courage  and  settle  again  our  mental  and  moral  equilibri- 


238  SELECTED  ARTICLES 


iim.  Now  it  is  proposed  that  we  have  no  reserve  any  longer,  that  we 
go  into  our  conflicts  taking  our  women  with  us,  all  to  be  kept  heat- 
ing in  the  same  fire  for  weeks  or  months  together,  without  inter- 
spersings  of  rest,  or  quieting  times  of  composure.  We  are  to  be 
as  much  more  excited  of  course,  as  we  can  be,  and  the  women  are 
of  course  to  be  as  much  more  excited  than  we  as  they  are  more 
excitable.  Let  no  man  imagine  that  our  women  are  going  into 
thes-e  encounters  to  be  just  as  quiet  or  as  little  nerved  as  now, 
when  they  sit  in  the  rear,  unexcited,  letting  us  come  back  to 
them  often  to  recover  our  reason.  They  are  to  be  no  more  mi- 
tigators  now,  but  instigators  rather,  sweltering  in  the  same  fierce 
heats   and   commotions,    only  more   fiercely   stirred   than   we. 

It  is  the  very  distinctive  qualities  culminating  in  an  exquisite 
•sensibility,  the  source  of  woman's  charm  in  private  and  family 
and  social  life,  which,  exposed  to  the  attrition  and  agitations  of 
party  conflicts,  will  most  fan  the  flame. 

In  this  country  these  liabilities  have  been  illustrated  where 
women  have  come  into  anything  analogous  to  political  life.  The 
feud  that  existed  for  years  between  two  wings  of  the  Woman 
Suffrage  Association  in  the  United  States  is  ancient  but  still  in- 
structive history. 

The  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union  organized  for  the 
promotion  of  an  end  in  which  all  were  agreed,  managed  by  lead- 
ers to  whom  all  are  accustomed  to  defer,  would  not  be  expected 
to  have  any  serious  difficulty.  But  when  ,a  feud  arose  which 
ostensibly  began  because  of  a  divergence  of  opinion  with  respect 
to  the  relation  which  the  Union  should  sustain  to  political  parties, 
it  speedily  became  intense,  and  a  distinguished  woman,  the  leader 
of  the  minority,  more  than  intimates  concerning  the  national 
president,  that, 

in  all  her  great  work  she  has*  been  but  seeking  a  background  for 
Tier  personal  exploits,  and  a  theater  for  the  exercise  of  her  won- 
•derful  powers  and  accomplishments. 

To  this,  by  order  of  the  executive  committee,  a  reply  was  pre- 
pared by  a  sub-committee  of  four  women  of  national  recognition, 
which,  after  making  various  charges,  culminates  in  a  passage 
unsurpassed  in  sting  of  innuendo: 

Whatever  values  has  won  as  chairman  of  the  Women's  Re- 
publican National  League,  as  one  of  the  famous  "spell-binclers," 
and  wife  of  a  Republican  official,  she  has  lost  the  faith  of  her 
old  comrades  in  her  sincerity,  the  chaplet  of  their  admiring  love, 
and  the  crown  of  leadership  in  the  grandest  body  of  women  known 
in   the  world. 

The  closest  approximation  to  political  life  on  a  national  scale 

€ver   made   in   this   country   was   the   National    Board   of   Lady 


WOAIAN   SUFFRAGE  ■  239 

Managers  of  the  World's  Fair.  These  were  women  of  high 
character  and  social  influence,  most  of  them  accustomed  to 
various  forms  of  public  life,  selected  because  of  their  standing 
in  the  states  whence  they  came.  A  large  proportion  of  them  at 
all  times  spoke  and  acted  in  such  a  manner  as  to  command 
universal  respect,  and  their  work  as  a  whole  secured  the  appro- 
bation of  the  coimtry. 

But  the  board  had  honors  to  confer,  awards  to  make,  and 
patronage  to  distribute.  Discord  arose  between  the  secretary 
and  the  president,  the  former  being  a  lawyer  and  a  noted  advo- 
cate of  woman  suffrage.  This  controversy  lasted  for  months, 
threatening  to  embroil  the  country.  Jealousy  of  the  president's 
failure  to  introduce  some  of  her  colleagues  to  the  Duchess  de 
Veragua  caused  a  stormy  scene.  Later,  another  charged  a  wom- 
an in  higher  office  with  instructing  the  presidents  of  the  various 
meetings  to  exclude  her  from  participation  in  the  speaking. 
Owing  to  various  bitter  quarrels  among  the  members,  and  fac- 
tional opposition,  the  president  intimated  her  intention  to  resign. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  the  president  was  a  woman  of  tact 
and  rare  ability  as  a  presiding  officer.  On  one  day,  after  a  long 
altercation  accompanied  by  many  personal  contradictions,  the 
board  stopped  business,  and  the  members  left  the  hall  in  confu- 
sion without  adjourning.  A  sectional  war  broke  out,  when  a 
lady  exclaimed  with  reference  to  the  nomination  of  jurors: 
"New  York  has  eight  representatives  and  North  Dakota  none. 
I  want  to  know  the  reason  why.  There  is  something  crooked 
going  on  here,  and  1  am  going  to  find  it  out." 

Subsequently  several  women  commissioners  appealed  to  the 
National  Commission  against  alleged  injustice.  And  later,  in 
open  debate,  one  delegate  charged  another  with  being  "an  arro- 
gant, malicious,  injurious,  and  vindictive  woman,"  which  caused 
intense  general  excitement  accompanied  by  ejaculations  and 
tears.  F'or  several  days  the  disturbance  was  renewed ;  but  peace 
was  finally  made,  and  the  account  of  the  controversy  was  ex- 
punged from  the  records.  Such  was  thie  effect  of  these  scenes 
that  some  of  the  members  of  the  board  reversed  their  opinion 
on  the  desirableness  of  woman's  entering  political  life. 

Further  illustrations  appeared  during  the  recent  canvass  in 
the  state  of  New  York  for  petitions  to  strike  out  the  word  male 


240  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

from  the  Constitution,  when  a  counter-movement  was  begun 
by  women.  The  protestants  were  characterized  by  educated 
ladies  in  public  assemblies  as  "traitors  to  their  sex,"  "copper- 
heads," "betrayers  of  the  cause  of  woman,"  and  such  was  the 
intensity  of  the  feelings  that  these  terms  and  phrases  evoked 
general  applause.  The  women  who  presumed  to  resist  the  in- 
novation were  characterized  by  one  of  their  sisters,  in  a  con- 
tribution to  an  important  periodical,  as  "parasites  who  have 
mentally  retrograded." 

It  will  place  a  new  and  terrible  strain  upon  the  family  rela- 
tion. The  ratio  of  marriages  relatively  to  the  number  of  the 
population  is  diminishing;  the  number  of  divorces  has  been  in- 
creasing alarmingly  for  the  past  thirty  years.  They  are  most 
numerous  in  sections  of  the  country  where  there  has  been  a  per- 
sistent and  almost  fierce  demand  for  the  ballot. 

The  introduction  of  political  disputes  and  party  work  into 
family  life  will  develop  and  increase  incompatibility,  a  prolilic 
cause  of  separations,  infidelity  to  the  marriage  contract,  and  di- 
vorce. To  this  it  has  been  responded  :  "There  has  always  been  more 
contention  over  religion  than  over  politics,  yet  often  the  wife  is 
a  member  of  one  church,  and  the  husband  of  another  or  of  none ; 
and  yet  the  family  is  not  disrupted,  and  it  is  evident  from  the 
seeming  concord  of  the  household  that  the  two  have  agreed 
to  disagree."  That  the  family  can  bear  existing  strains  does 
not  prove  that  it  could  endure  all  that  it  has  and  a  greater  than 
any  of  them.  Even  the  worst  of  men  generally  wish  their  wives, 
unless  they  become  fanatics,  to  be  religious,  or  do  not  seriously 
object  to  it.  But  there  is  a  radical  difference  between  political 
excitement  and  any  other.  A  political  difference  means  that 
the  most  intense  feelings  shall  be  excited  and  kept  at  fever  heat 
for  several  weeks  or  months,  liable  to  culminate  in  a  direct  act 
of  opposition,  the  wife  going  to  the  polls  against  her  husband, 
and  he  against  her,  exchanging  glances  of  sympathy  with  life- 
long political  opponents,  perhaps  cooperating  in  active  opposition. 
The  wife  may  be  working  and  voting  against  her  husband's  most 
intimate  business  or  personal  friends,  and  endeavoring  to  secure 
the  passage  of  laws  especially  obnoxious  to  him.  In  cases  of 
disagreement,  where  there  are  children,  each  parent  would  en- 
deavor to  surpass  the  other  in  capturing  recruits  at  the   family 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  241- 

altar,  the  table,  and  the  fireside.  At  the  end  of  the  conflict  the 
defeated  would  be  left  without  the  sympathy  of  the  other ;  and 
not  only  without  the  sympathy,  but  in  many  cases  with  the  taunt 
and  sneer. 

These  possibilities  should  not  be  considered  merely  or  chiefly 
with  respect  to  established  families,  united  "by  the  reciprocal 
ties  of  friendly  intercourse,"  through  many  years  down  to  the 
time  of  the  introduction  of  woman  suffrage.  The  strain  will 
be  most  felt  whenever  and  wherever  the  tie  is  weakest,  whether 
the  cause  be  the  inexperience  and  impulsiveness  of  early  married 
life,  or  the  accumulated  incompatibilities  which  test  the  self- 
control  of  many.  To  resort  to  the  assumption  that  ''women  will 
generally  vote  as  their  husbands  do"  is  to  renounce  most  of 
the  consid'erations  advanced  in  favor  of  the  movement. 

To  invest  her  mith  the  responsibility  of  voting  will  diminish 
the  real  power  of  woman  in  speech.  At  present  she  may  say 
what  she  will;  men  hear,  and,  without  subjecting  her  woids  to 
too  close  a  scrutin}^  are  influenced  by  her  spirit.  Require  her  to 
vote,  identify  her  with  a  party,  and  in  some  instances  she  will 
grow  timid ;  where  she  refuses  to  restrain  herself,  she  will  be- 
come an  impediment  to  party  success,  and  will  be  ignored.  When 
women  oppose  women,  their  party  conflicts  will  deprive  them  of 
that  power  by  which  they  now  leaven  public  sentiment. 

//  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  deteriorate  the  moral  tone 
of  most  of  the  women  who  become  political  leaders,  and  affect 
"unfavorably  all  who  take  an  active  part  in  politics;  and  it  zvill 
introduce  dangerous  forms  of  corruption.  The  principal  causes 
of  political  immorality  are  the  desire  for  power,  for  "spoils"  in 
money  and  office  bribery,  craft,  party  and  personal  prejudice.  Is 
it  reasonable  to  believe  that  women  who  become  political  lead- 
ers, and  intensely  excited  in  political  campaigns,  will  escape  the 
influence  of  these  demoralizing  elements?  Certainly  it  will  not 
be  maintained  that  women  are  destitute  of  ambition,  that  they 
are  above  the  influence  of  prejudice  or  prepossession,  that  per- 
sonal favoritism  can  never  warp  their  judgment,  that  money,  or 
what  it  procures,  has  no  charm  for  them.  While  seme — in  the 
aggregate,  many — would  resist  every  temptation,  preserv^e  their 
wom.anliness,  and  illustrate  in  high  places  all  the  virtues,  is  cer- 
tain. But  to  subject  the  entire  sex  to  such  influences  would  in- 
evitably lower  its  moral  tone. 


242  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

When  women  vote  generally, — and  if  they  are  not  to  vote 
generally  the  agitation  is  useless, — all  classes  will  need  to  be 
instructed  and  led  to  the  polls.  There  must  be  women  leaders 
for  different  classes,  as  there  are  among  men.  Women  who 
aspire  to  be  leaders,  or  are  made  such  by  their  constituents^ 
will  be  compelled  to  associate  for  political  purposes  with  other 
women  similarly  related  to  the  party.  At  present  the  morals 
of  society  are  largely  preserved  by  the  fact  that  a  woman  of 
doubtful  character  is  not  admitted  to  the  society  of  women  of 
unspotted  reputation.  It  is  easy  to  maintain  such  an  attitude 
now ;  it  would  be  impossible  in  a  general  participation  of  women 
in  politics.  Also  that  leading  political  women  will  be  brought 
into  confidential  relations  with  men  occupying  similar  relations 
in  the  same  party  is  a  consequence  of  the  proposed  revolution 
which  would  not  long  be  delayed.  Its  effect  upon  domestic  peace^ 
and  public  and  private  morality,  could  not  be  salutary. 

A  Rational  Forecast. 

Should  the  suffrage  be  extended  to  women  the  grant  can 
never  be  recalled.  Experiments  in  legislating  upon  economic 
questions,  even  if  unwise,  need  not  be  permanently  harmful,  for 
they  may  be  repealed ;  but  in  dealing  with  the  suffrage,  or  with 
moral  questions ,  new  laws,  if  bad,  are  exceedingly  dangerous. 
They  will  develop  a  class  lowered  in  tone,  or  deriving  personal, 
pecuniary,  or  political  advantages  from  the  new  environment, 
who  will  vehemently  declare  that  the  effect  of  the  innovation  is 
beneficial,  and  resist  all  efforts  to  return  to  the  former  state. 

Should  the  duty  of  governing  in  the  state  be  imposed  upon 
women,  all  the  members  of  society  will  suffer;  children,  by 
diminished  care  from  their  mothers ;  husbands,  from  the  in- 
crease of  the  contentions,  and  the  decline  of  the  attractions  of 
home ;  young  men  and  maidens,  from  the  diminution  or  de- 
struction of  the  idealism  which  invests  the  family  with  such 
charms  as  to  make  the  hope  of  a  home  of  one's  own,  where  in 
the  contrasts  of  the  sexes  life  may  be  ever  a  delight,  an  impulse 
to  economy  and  virtue — but  the  greatest  sufferer  will  be  woman. 
Often  those  who  recollect  her  genuine  freedom  of  speech,  "the 
might  of  her  gentleness,"  the  almost  resistless  potency  of  her 
look  and  touch  and  voice,  will  long  for  the  former  proud  de- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  243 

pendence  of  woman  on  manliness,  reciprocated  by  man's  rever- 
ence for  womanliness ;  while  "the  new  generation,  to  whom  such 
sweet  recollections  will  be  miknown,  will  blindly  rave  against 
their  fate  or  despondently  sink  under  it,  as  women  have  never 
done  (from  similar  causes)  under  the  old  regime."  Meanwhile 
the  office-holding,  intriguing,  campaigning,  lobbying,  mannish 
woman  will  celebrate  the  day  of  emancipation, — which,  alas,  will 
be  the  day  of  degradation, — when,  grasping  at  sovereignty,  she 
lost  her  empire. 

The  true  woman  needs  no  governing  authority  conferred 
upon  her  by  law.  In  the  present  situation  the  highest  evidence 
of  respect  that  man  can  exhibit  toward  woman,  and  the  noblest 
service  he  can  perform  for  her,  are  to  vote  nay  to  the  proposition 
that  would  take  from  her  the  diadem  of  pearls,  the  talisman  of 
faith,  hope,  and  love,  by  which  all  other  requests  are  won  from 
men,  and  substitute 'for  it  the  iron  crown  of  authority. 


Gunton's  Magazine.  20:  333-44.  April,  1901. 

Scientific   Aspects   of   the   Woman    Suffrage   Question. 
Mrs.    Mary  K.    Sedgwick. 

In  an  ideal  society  men  and  women  choose  their  occupations 
to  suit  both  individual  and  sex  fitness ;  wherever  this  is  im- 
possible energy  is  lost.  Many  occupations  fall  naturally  to  one 
sex  or  the  other  because  of  special  fitness  or  unfitness.  Men 
shoul(f  do  all  the  work  calling  for  great  physical  strength,  con- 
tinued exposure,  or  long  absence  from  home;  in  general,  work 
involving  the  combative  powers.  Women  must,  on  the  other 
hand,  take  care  of  the  children  and  home ;  they  must  do  most 
of  the  teaching  and  nursing.  Many  other  occupations  may  be 
entered  by  men  and  women  with  equal  advantage,  except  that 
women  are  constantly  handicapped  by  their  peculiar  physical 
limitations,  a  point  which  most  suffragists  ignore. 

Women  have  every  opportunity  that  men  have  for  intellectual 
development  and  public  usefulness,  except  in  government  and 
war.  To  counterbalance  these  limitations,  women  have  at  least 
two   functions   that  men  have  not, — bearing  children   and   train- 


244  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

ing  them,  functions  obviously  quite  as  important  as  politics  or 
military  service.  A  third  function  may  be  added,  for  women 
have  so  far  captured  the  direction  of  primary  education  that 
there  are  few  men  left  teaching  in  elementary  grades. 

As  has  often  been  said,  if  men  have  proved  such  poor  law- 
makers as  the  suffragists  assert,  the  mothers  of  the  nations 
should  prove  that  they  can  train  their  sons  better  before 
demanding  the  responsibility  of  the  ballot.  In  any  case  it  re- 
mains for  the  suffragists  to  show  why  it  is  such  a  supreme  dis- 
advantage to  women  to  be  free  from  the  conduct  of  government 
and  of  war.  Why  should  women  sacrifice  the  privilege  of  un- 
trammeled  opinions,  disinterested  work  and  effective  influence 
for  the  heated  debate  and  bitter  struggle  for  recognition  and 
office  which  are  such  an  ordeal  for  men  in  public  life? 

The  suffragists  assert  that  probably  not  more  than  ten 
women  in  a  hundred  would  care  for  active  participation  in  poli- 
tics. There  are  grave  objections  to  granting  the  suffrage  for 
the  use  of  so  small  a  proportion  of  the  sex.  These  ten  women 
in  each  hundred  are  probably  the  ablest  ?nd  most  ambitious  of 
their  group,  women  needed  for  the  more  important  work  of 
training  children  or  for  boards  of  philanthropy  and  reform 
where  the  disinterested  work  of  women  tells  enormously,  simply 
because  disinterested.  Woman's  power  in  matters  of  public 
reform  is  much  greater  because  she  cannot  be  accused  of  having 
any  selfish  or  ulterior  motive.  She  is  known  to  be  working 
simply  to  right  abuses,  and  to  protect  poor  and  defeated  members 
of  society;  if  she  wins,  it  is  the  triumph  of  justice,  her  cause 
is  humanity's.  But  the  necessary  corollary  of  the  ballot  is  eli- 
gibility to  office,  and  there  would  always  be  voices  to  accuse  of 
interested  motives  th;e  woman  voter  contending  for  reform.  It 
is  absurd  to  say  that  women  on  public  philanthropical  and  edu- 
cational boards  are  in  politics,  and  that  they  have  therefore 
shown  their  political  capabilities  already.  The  struggle  in  Bos- 
ton in  1896  to  separate  politics  from  its  public  charitable,  cor- 
rectional, and  reform  institutions  refutes  any  such  statement. 

If  only  ten  women  in  a  hundred  used  the  suffrage  wisely, 
there  would  be  ninety  in  each  hundred  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the 
indifferent,  which  means  uninstructed  voters,  of  whom  we  have 
far  too  many  among  men.     Moreover,  many  of  these  inactive 


WOAIAN   SUFFRAGE  245 

women  voters  would  be  more  than  uninstructed ;  they  would  be 
ignorant  and  unconscientious,  some  of  them  vicious. 

Women  would  have  not  only  to  cast  a  vote  but  to  attend  and 
watch  primaries,  caucuses,  conventions.  Many  men  do  not  do 
this,  but  unless  wcmen  are  to  improve  matters  it  is  futile  to 
double  the  present  vote. 

Our  trouble  lies  in  calling  women  a  distinct  class,  and  in  re- 
garding the  question  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  individual 
rather  than  of  the  whole  state  and  nation.  The  men  and  women 
of  a  given  stratum  of  society  form  one  class  together;  for  men 
and  women  living  together,  whether  in  tenements  or  palaces,  are 
not  antagonistic  nor  even  indifferent  to  each  other's  welfare. 
It  is  only  in  comparing  the  exceptional  woman  with  the  average 
man,  or  the  educated  and  public-spirited  woman  with  the  ignor- 
ant laborer  that  we  get  an  apparent  basis  for  equal  suffrage. 
The  whole  agitation  is  founded  upon,  a  misapprehension  of  the 
social  unit,  which  is  not  the  individual  but  the  family,  of  which 
each  part  contributes  its  share  to  the  general  good. 

Those  who  argue  that  woman  would  purify  politics  think  of 
women  of  the  higher  type,  more  conscientious  than  men  of  less 
education  and  lower  moral  standards.  But  the  vote  of  this 
kind  of  woman  does  not  replace  that  of  an  idle,  worthless  man. 
If  she  votes,  so  does  he,  and  the  woman  of  his  family.  Where 
is  the  gain  of  doubling  the  vote  without  improving  its  quality? 

Much  of  the  alleged  unfitness  of  women  for  public  life  could 
undoub'tedly  be  eradicated  by  proper  education  during  the 
impressible  period  of  youth.  It  will,  however,  always  be  true 
that  women  are  more  delicately  organized  than  men,  more 
quickly  stirred  emotionally  and  imaginatively.  In  political  life 
women  cannot  acquire  control  of  their  emotions  or  the  necessary 
practical  training  in  public  morals  and  manners ;  such  training 
must  be  largely  obtained  before  the  age  of  twenty-one,  and  the 
arena  of  politics  is  plainly  the  last  place  in  which  to  secure  it. 

Has  political  life  trained  our  men  to  such  lofty  ideals  of 
public  honor,  such  impartial  administration  of  justice,  such 
habits  of  calm  and  fair  discussion  that  we  wish  to  entrust  to  its 
turmoil  the  impetuous  and  ardent  nature  of  woman?  Secretary 
Gage  has  said  by  newspaper  report:  "The  increasing  emotional- 
ism which  characterizes  American  politics  is  one  of  our  greatest 


246  SELECTED  ARTICLES      > 

dangers,  the  tendency  for  great  floods  and  waves  of  feeling  to 
sweep  over  the  community,  and  to  carry  thousands  and  millions 
with  them  into  a  sudden  current.  What  we  need  is  less  emo- 
tionalism in  politics,  not  more ;  I  think,"  he  concluded,  "that  the 
sudden  admission  of  women  into  political  life  would  greatly  ag- 
gravate this  danger." 

Men  admit  that  there  is  no  career  equal  to  politics  for  tense 
feeling  and  nervous  wear.  It  demands  the  greatest  coolness 
and  deliberation,  complete  detachment  from  the  personal  view ; 
and  it  demands  these  ready-made,  it  is  not  a  school  for  devel- 
oping them.  Women  do  not  need  politics  to  incite  them  to 
cultivate  their  sense  of  public  duty ;  they  are,  no  less  than  men, 
bound  to  serve  the  state,  and  able  to  serve  it  wisely.  "The  end 
of  government  is  the  good  of  mankind,"  said  Locke,  and  that 
good  can  be  attained  only  by  conveying  all  the  various  forces  of 
the  race  toward  the  common  end.  The  contribution  of  women 
toward  this  end,  while  equally  essential,  is  necessarily  unlike 
that  of  men. 


Harper's  Bazar.  43:  1169-70.  November,  1909. 

Working-Woman  and  Anti-Suffrage.     Priscilla  Leonard. 

The  American  woman  is  altruistic.  She  loves  to  work  for 
the  common  good.  She  is  learning  more  and  more,  in  her  clubs 
and  her  charities,  the  need  of  helping  other  women  toward  bet- 
ter conditions.  And  it  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  strongest  points 
of  the  suffragist  attack  that  they  promise  enormous  benefit; 
through  the  ballot,  to  the  working-girl.  Those  women  who  are 
interested  in  child  labor,  in  regulating  hours  and  labor  for 
women,  in  equalizing  wages  between  men  and  women,  are  told 
that  the  vote  for  women  will  solve  all  these  problems.  If  it 
is  so,  how  can  any  woman  stand  out  against  this  talisman  for 
the  relief  of  her  toiling  sisters.  Yes — if  it  is  so.  But  suppose 
it  isn't? 

Politics  and  Economics. 

Politics  are  not  economics.  Economics  are  not  politics.  The 
law   of   supply  and   demand   works   right   along,   independent  of 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  247 

elections.  One  single,  simple  fact  knocks  the  ground  out  clean 
from  under  the  argument  that  votes  determine  wages. 

In  the  panic  year  the  working-man's  wages  came  down  and 
thousands  of  working-men  were  out  of  employment  on  our 
streets.     Yet  they  each  had  a  vote. 

In  the  panic  year  the  wages  of  cooks  and  housemaids  did 
not  come  down.  No  unemployed  cooks  and  housemaids  were 
seeking  jobs  from  house  to  house  in  vain.  Yet  not  one  cook 
or  housemaid  had  a  vote. 

The  reason  was  economic.  There  are  never  enough  domestic 
servants  in  America  to  fill  the  demand.  Therefore,  their  wages 
steadily  increase.  So  great  is  the  demand  and  so  small  the  sup- 
ply that  even  untrained  cooks  are  sure  of  relatively  high  wages, 
while  the  trained  cooks  push  the  price  up  steadily  year  by  year. 
Not  because  their  case  is  pitiful;  not  because  other  women  want 
to  ameliorate  their  lot,  not  because  laws  are  made  to  help  them, 
does  the  price  rise — no  indeed.  Everybody  is  against  their  de- 
mands. No  legislature  has  ever  tried  to  provide  seats  for  them 
or  forbid  night  work  or  recommend  a  minimum  wage.  Eco- 
nomic law,  which  is  largely  self-regulating,  takes  care  of  them 
and  makes  them  a  privileged  and  high-paid  class.  To  work  en- 
thusiastically and  passionately  to  give  one's  housemaid  or  cook 
a  vote  as  a  safeguard  for  her  rights  sounds  absurd  tO'  every 
woman.  It  is  absurd.  But  then — so  is  the  demand  for  a  vote 
for  any  other  working-woman,  in  the  hope  of  changing  her 
economic  condition. 

The    Working-Woman's   Three  Handicaps. 

Why  is  the  working-girl  illy  paid,  forced  to  work  under  un- 
healthful  conditions,  and  exploited  generally?  There  are  three 
main  reasons.  Every  one  of  them  is  economic  and  absolutely 
unremediable  by  a  vote  or  twenty  votes. 

(i)  There  is  an  oversupply  of  working-girls  in  all  the  poor- 
ly paid  trades. 

(2)  The  working-girl  works  largely,  for  pin-money,  not  for 
a  living  wa^e. 

(3)  Her   working  period  is  usually  temporary. 

In  a  trade  in  which  there  is  not  an  oversupply  of  women  ap- 
plicants and  in  which  their  work  is  equal  to  that  of  men,  they 


248  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

command  the  same  wages.  Take  novel-writing,  for  example. 
Mrs.  Humphry  Ward's  prices  are  the  top  of  the  trade.  Take 
Melba  and  Patti — they  cannot  complain  of  low  wages.  Rosa.^ 
Bonheur  and  Cecilia  Beaux  suffer  no  injustice  in  competing  with 
men.  Hetty  Green  can  get  as  much  out  of  the  moneymarket  as 
any  broker.  Even  in  the  teaching  profession,  the  agitation  of 
the  women  teachers  of  New  York  state  to  have  their  wages 
equalized  with  those  of  men  by  act  of  the  legislature  would 
seem  absurd  to  Calif ornians,  for  in  California  women  teachers 
receive  the  same  wages  as  the  men  without  any  laws  on  the  sub- 
ject whatever,  because  there  are  never  more  than  enough  of 
them  to  supply  the  demand.  (In  Colorado,  by  the  way,  an 
equal-suffrage  state,  the  women  teachers  at  last  accounts  do  not 
receive  as  much  as  the  men  teachers — showing  that  economics 
do  not  depend  on  politics  there  any  more  than  in  other  places.) 
But  an  overcrowded  trade  is  always  illy  paid — ^that  is  economic 
law.  And  the  working-girls  who  suffer  most,  and  whom  all 
women  want  most  to  help,  are  invariably  in  the  overcrowded 
trades. 

The  result  of  oversupply  is  that  the  employer  can  fix  his 
own  prices.  If  three  girls  afe  all  trying  for  the  same  job  (and 
it  is  more  likely  that  there  are  thirty  than  three  after  it)  wages 
-can  be  lowered  and  yet  lowered  and  there  will  still  be  girls 
enough  to  fill  the  factory  or  the  store  or  the  laundry.  With 
men,  this  situation  has  been  recognized  long  ago — and  the  power- 
lessness  of  the  vote  to  affect  it — and  men  have,  therefore,  or- 
ganized their  labor.  When  men's  wages  go  too  low  or  their  hours 
are  too  long  they  strike  and  gain  their  point — if  they  gain  it  at  all 
— by  cutting  off  the  supply  of  labor.  That  is  an  economic  move — 
and  therefore  affects  things.  But  politics  do  not  control  eco- 
nomics— if  they  did  every  laboring-man  who  is  a  voter  would  be 
getting  two  dollars  a  day  at  least  and  no  days  laid  off. 

The  Pin-Money  Worker. 

Secondly,  the  working-girl  is  illy  paid  because  she  works  for 
pin-money,  not  for  a  living  wage.  One  of  the  largest  stores  in 
New  York  makes  the  rule  that  no  girl  shall  be  employed  who 
does  not  live  at  home  or  with  relatives.  The  reason  is  thus 
explained :  *'Our  wage  for  beginners  and  for  untrained  grades  of 
work  is  so  low  that  no  girl  can  live  decently  on  it,  unless  she 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  249 

lives  at  home  and  pays  no  board  or  else  lives  with  relatives 
who  help  her  along."  That  store  always  has  more  applicants 
than  it  needs,  just  like  all  the  others.  The  girl  who  works  to 
earn  money  simply  to  spend,  or  to  provide  only  half  of  her  sup- 
port, is  the  average  working-girl.  No  law  can  keep  her  out  of 
the  labor-market;  and  in  the  labor-market  by  economic  prin- 
ciples she  determines  the  price  for  her  self-supporting  sisters. 
It  is  a  wretched  state  of  affairs,  but  it  requires  no  hard  thinking 
to  see  that  the  ballot  could  not  remedy  it  in  any  way. 

The  Temporary  Worker  and  Her  Age. 

Third,  the  working  period  for  girls  is  usually  temporary.  The 
average  age  of  the  woman  workers  of  America  is  from  eighteen 
to  twenty-two.  Half  of  them  cease  to  be  wage-earners  at  twenty- 
five.  One-sixth  more  of  them  drop  out  by  thirty-five.  The 
truth  is  the  working-girl  only  expects  to  work  until  she  marries, 
and  the  one-third  who  stay  on  are  largely  the  widowed  or  the 
divorced.  Because  the  majority  only  work  for  four  years  out 
of  their  whole  lives,  they  are  willing  to  take  low  pay  and  they 
never  become — nor,  for  the  most  part,  try  to  become — really 
skilled  workers,  who  command  good  wages.  Men  go  into  work 
to  stay  and  work  up  to  better  positions  each  year— there  is  the 
economic  difference,  which  no  vote  and  no  law  can  change. 

For  these  reasons  the  anti-suffragists  are  not  greatly  swayed 
bj'-  the  suffragist  assertions  that  the  ballot  is  needed  by  the 
working-girl.  They  also  see,  what  the  suffragist  usually  omits 
to  consider,  that  from  a  third  to  a  half  of  the  working-women 
of  the  United  States  are  at  any  one  time  under  voting  age. 
Any  suffrage,  therefore,  that  really  proposes  to  give  the  working- 
girl  a  vote  must  set  the  voting  age  at  fourteen,  at  which  age 
thousands  of  girls  go  into  industry  in  the  most  crowded  trades 
under  the  most  trying  conditions. 

The  remedy  for  the  present  condition  of  the  working-girl 
lies  in  trades-unions,  in  the  education  of  girls  in  handicrafts 
and  in  domestic  science,  in  the  agitation  for  a  living  wage,  and 
the  solidarity  of  the  pin-money  worker  with  her  self-supporting 
sister,  rather  than  in  giving  the  ballot  to  a  class  so  many  of  whom 
are  not  old  enough  to  use  it.  What  legislation  is  necessary  and 
possible  is  now  pushed  forward  heartily  by  the  National  Con- 


250  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

sumers'  League,  the  National  Child  Labor  Comniiittee,  and  other 
bodies  in  which  able  men  and  women  of  all  classes  work  to- 
gether. It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  Consumers'  League, 
through  a  prominent  lawyer  armed  with  a  brief  prepared  by  a 
woman,  won  in  the  Supreme  Court  a  test  case  as  to  limiting 
the  hours  for  working-women — ^the  Curt  Miiller  case  in  Oregon — 
whereas  the  courts  of  Colorado,  an  equal-suffrage  state,  threw 
out  as  unconstitutional  an  eight-hour  law  for  Colorado  working- 
women. 

Woman's  Working  Status  Not  Yet  Settled. 

Woman  is  a  new  factor  in  most  fields  of  industry.  Man  has 
been  working  away  at  his  problems  in  the  industrial  world  for 
centuries.  It  is  going  to  take  time  to  get  justice  for  woman 
in  industry,  because  she  has  brought  in  industrial  complications 
and  abuses  that  have  to  be  studied  and  prevented  not  in  a  day, 
but  through  long  adjustment.  But  to  advocate  the  profound 
political  change  of  a  ballot  for  all  women  because  one  woman 
out  of  every  six  is  in  industry  and  needs  the  vote  to  change  her 
economic  conditions  would  be  five  times  a  mistake,  especially 
since  the  sixth  woman  would  not  be  really  benefited  at  all  aVid 
could  not  vote  half  the  time  on  account  of  her  youth.  (We 
must  not  forget,  either,  the  two  million  working-women  in 
domestic  service  who  need  no  legislation  as  to  their  wages.) 

The  anti-suffragists  are  just  as  anxious  as  the  suffragists 
to  improve  the  status  of  woman  in  industry.  They  are  found  in 
all  the  movements  for  the  relief  of  the  working-girl,  for  the 
protection  of  the  younger  girls  by  child-labor  laws,  for  the  help 
of  working-women.  They  seek  the  same  end,  but  they  have  no 
belief  in  the  ballot  as  a  means.  They  see  in  it  not  a  short  cut 
to  the  millennium,  but  a  will-o'-the-w4sp  to  follow  which  is  a 
waste  of  time.  In  their  ranks  are  many  of  the  working-women 
themselves.  As  the  July  Remonstrance  notes,  the  last  great 
English  petition  against  woman  suffrage,  presented  to  the 
House  of  Commons  last  March,  signed  by  243,852  women, 
furnishes  striking  proof  of  this  fact.  On  the  first  page  were  the 
signatures  of  a  peeress,  who  is  a  widow  and  a  large  land-owner, 
of  a  head  mistress  of  a  high  school,  of  a  highly  educated  work- 
ing-woman, of  a  librarian,  of  an  author,  and  of  a  wage-earner. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  251 

In  the  petition,  as  a  whole,  were  representatives  of  every  trade 
and  profession  and  occupation  and  walk  in  life:  authors,  journal- 
ists, school-mistresses,  farmers,  shopkeepers;  typists,  clerks, 
domestic  servants,  mill  hands,  shop  assistants,  fishwives,  coast- 
guards' wives,  soldiers'  and  sailors'  wives,  charwomen  and  care- 
takers. 

Miss  Gilder's  View. 

Miss  Jeannette  Gilder,  in  the  New  York  Times  recently  gave 
her  view  "as  one  working-wo  nan  sees  it"  thus : 

"I  am  an  anti-suffragist  because  I  have  never  heard  a  single 
argument  advanced  for  the  cause  of  suffrage  that  seemed  to 
me  convincing.  .    .   . 

"I  resent  the  assumption  of  the  suffragists  that  they  repre- 
sent the  working-woman  and  that  they  are  her  best  friends. 
They  do  represent  a  large  element  of  the  working-women,  but 
not  all ;  nor  are  they  her  best  friends.  They  believe  that  they 
are,  no  doubt;  but  I  believe  that  they  are  her  worst  enemies, 
because  they  teach  her  discontent  and  hold  out  golden  hopes  to 
her  that  can  never  be  realized. 

"I  am  just  as  much  of  a  working- woman  as  Mrs.  Kelly  or 
Miss  O'Reilly.  I  began  at  fourteen  and  have  been  at  it  ever 
since  and  expect  to  be  at  it  till  I  die.  I  have  worked  hard  and 
had  as  many  responsibilities  and  discouragements  as  though  I 
had  rolled  cigars  in  a  factory  or  worked  at  a  loom  in  a  mill, 
and  I  have  just  as  much  right  to  speak  for  the  working- woman 
as  have  they ;  and  I  wish  to  say  right  here,  as  I  have  said  else- 
where, that  I  cannot  see  that  the  ballot  would  have  helped  me 
one  iota  in  getting  on  in  the  world  or  have  made  the  rough 
places  smooth. 

"I  believe  not  only  that  the  ballot  in  the  hands  of  women 
would  be  a  calamity,  but  I  believe  that  it  would  prove  a  boomer- 
ang." 

Ladies'   Home  Journal.   25:    15.    November,    1908. 

Why  I  Do  Not  Believe  in  Woman  Suffrage. 

Mary  Augusta  Ward    (Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.) 

There  is,  and  always  will  be,  a  natural  division  between  the 
spheres  of  men  and  women ;  an  axiom  we  may  deny  as  we  will, 


252  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

but  which  has  a  way  in.  the  end  of  "proving'*  itself  "upon  our 
pulses."  Is  there  any  reasonableness  in  denying  that  men  have 
built  up  the  modcrm  political  state,  and  that  men  must  maintain 
it?  The  modern  state,  as  we  know,  depends  ultimately  on 
force.  This  is  constantly  disputed  by  the  idealists  of  the 
world ;  but  if  it  were  not  the  case  mankind  would  not  be  spend- 
ing these  vast  sums,  all  over  the  earth,  on  armies  and  navies ; 
the  Hague  Conference  would  not  have  refused  to  admit  any 
discussion  as  to  the  limitation  of  armaments ;  and  your  Presi- 
dent, the  chief, — as  you  yourselves  insist — of  the  most  pacific  na- 
tion in  the  world,  would  not  have  sent  a  recent  message  to  Con- 
gress, asking  for  four  new  battleships  of  the  most  advanced  and 
formidable  type.  Women  may  say  what  they  please,  but  the  whole 
priesent  state  of  the  civilized  world  shows  that  force,  physical 
force,  armed  with  the  most  deadly  inventions  known  to  the  brain 
of  man,  is  what  each  modern  state  in  the  long  nm  and  in  the 
last  resort  depends  on  for  its  national  existence.  We  may  lament 
that  it  is  so ;  we  may  look  forward  to  a  time  when  the  world 
will  be  really  ruled  by  arbitration ;  but  that  day  is  a  long  way 
off.  And,  meanwhile,  women  have  no  right  to  claim  full  political 
power  in  a  state  where  they  can  never  themselves  take  the  full 
responsibility  of  their  actions,  because  they  can  never  be  called 
upon  finally  to  enforce  them. 

But  the  modern  state  depends  on  several  other  fundamental 
activities — physical  force  being  the  ultimate  sanction  of  all  of 
them — in  none  of  which  can  women  take  any  personal  share. 
Finance  and  commerce  are  carried  on  by  men ;  and  you  have 
had  disastrous  evidence  during  this  passing  year  as  to  the  effect 
finance  may  have  upon  the  general  life.  You  may  say  that  per- 
haps finance  and  commerce  might  be  more  efficiently  and  right- 
eously organized  than  they  are,  but  shall  we  improve  them 
by  bringing  in  the  votes  and  the  political  influence  of  those  who 
have  never  had  any  guiding  or  responsible  share  in  commerce 
and  finance?  Finance  and  commerce,  again,  depend  on  trans- 
port, on  ships  and  railways,  without  which  no  modern  state  can 
exist ;  and  ships  and  railways  depend  themselves  upon  the  great 
metal  and  mining  industries,  which  are  the  exclusive  concern  of 
men.  A  patriarchal  state  can  be  maintained  practically  without 
finance,  transport  or  mining;  but  wherever  these  enter  in  they 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  253 

make  the  framework  of  the  state;  and  that  framework  has 
been  made  and  must  be  maintamed  by  men. 

Then  again  there  is  diplomacy ;  the  modern  state  by  reason 
of  its  very  complexity,  and  of  the  enormous  importance  of  the 
issues  with  which  it  deals,  can  only  defend  itself— short  of 
weapons  of  war — in  the  great  world-competition  by  the  skilled 
weapons  of  diplomacy.  And  this  skill  depends  upon  a  trained 
knowledge  of  the  world  and  its  affairs,  which  only  men  can  get. 
It  is  their  natural  business  to  get  it;  they  are  not  held  back 
from  getting  it  by  the  cares  of  the  home  and  family;  and,  as 
far  as  we  can  see,  it  must  always  remain  their  business,  by 
virtue  of  a  natural  selection,  against  which  it  is  childish  to  fight. 
Do  women  wish  to  embarrass  the  diplomacy  which  protects  them 
and  their  children  by  adding  to  the  ignorance-vote  of  the  men, 
already  immensely  strong,  an  ignorance-vote  which  is  imposed 
by  Nature  and  irreparable? 

One  common  reply  to  these  arguments  is  that  women  are 
concerned  in  all  these  things  as  the  daughters,  wives  and  mothers 
of  men.  Nothing  is  more  true ;  and  the  fact  carries  with  it 
the  necessity  for  a  wider  outlook  and  a  wider  mental  training 
for  women  in  the  future  than  they  have  been  accustomed  to 
in  the  past.  Their  influence  on  all  great  questions  should  be, 
and  will  be,  in  proportion  to  their  education.  It  is  only  where 
force  and  numbers  come  in  that  they  ought  to  yield  the  field  to 
men.  Indeed,  the  educated  woman  will  probably,  it  seems  to  me, 
as  time  goes  on,  have  an  influence  somewhat  greater  than  that 
cf  the  ordinary  educated  man.  Her  sex,  and  the  fact  that  she 
stands  at  present  outside  of  the  rough-and-tumble  of  politics, 
make  the  better  type  of  men  more  inclined  to  listen  to  her ;  and 
the  more  knowledge  she  obtains,  and  the  more  political  forbear- 
ance she  shows,  the  greater  will  this  influence  be. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  case  of  the  poor,  the  difference  between 
the  man  and  the  woman,  in  point  of  political  judgment,  is  neces- 
sarily more  strongly  marked  than  it  need  be  in  the  richer  classes. 
The  wife  of  the  working-man  has  the  sole  care  of  the  children 
and  the  home,  and,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  is  overburdened  by 
it;  her  thoughts  do  not  travel  beyond  the  home  circle,  or  that 
of  the  niearest  local  affairs ;  she  has,  indeed,  neither  interest  nor 
time  for  even  rudimentary  politics.     But  the  man  has  at  least 


254  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

the  rough  training  of  the  public-house  and  its  talk,  of  the  village 
caucus  and  convention,  if  nothing  else,  and  in  addition  he  has 
generally  the  practical  education  given  by  his  workman's  club, 
his  debating  society,  and  all  the  hundred  opportunities  forced 
upon  him,  often  by  the  mere  conditions  of  his  trade,  of  becoming 
acquainted  with  the  great  political  issues  of  the  day. 

So  that  in  the  case  of  the  educated  woman,  the  political  vote 
would  rather  diminish  than  increase  the  power  she  has,  or  might 
have,  already;  while  in  the  case  of  the  uneducated  the  vote 
would  couple  political  power  with  a  political  inexperience  im- 
posed by  natural  conditions,  and  practically  not  alterable  by 
woman's  will. 

As  to  the  danger  of  women's  vote  to  a  modern  state  we  in 
England  are,  in  some  ways,  more  vulnerable  than  you.  Our 
ministry  may  be .  upset  at  any  moment  by  a  chance  vote  on 
water,  or  gas,  or  cordite,  or  any  other  pretext;  and  the  whole 
country  may  be  instantly  plunged  into  a  general  election,  the  re- 
sult of  which  may  change  the  whole  face  and  history  of  Eng- 
land. We  have  none  of  the  checks  provided  by  your  Constitu- 
tion; and  therefore,  with  us  the  dangers  of  an  increased  ignor- 
ance-vote are  enormous,  and  merely  to  risk  them  is,  in  my  be- 
lief, an  unpatriotic  act. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  personal  power  of  your  president 
is  a  greater  factor  in  your  national  life  than  the  power  of  an 
English  prime  minister  is  in  ours;  and  the  excitement  attending 
a  presidential  election  is  notoriously  great.  The  admission  of 
women  to  the  federal  franchise,  and  to  the  power  of  vitally  in- 
fluencing the  presidential  election,  has  therefore — coupled  with 
the  natural  disadvantages  of  women — its  special  dangers  for  you, 
which  are  probably  equal  to  those  we  are  conscious  of  in  our 
own  case. 

And  finally,  does  not  this  insistence  upon  the  suffrage  for 
women  imply  an  absurd  glorification  of  the  vote  as  an  instrument 
of  power?  The  vote  is  only  one  of  many  means  by  which  a  man 
asserts  himself  in  his  world.  It  is  a  necessary  part  of  the 
mechanism  of  the  modern  state,  and  all  those  great  matters 
which  depend  exclusively  on  man's  force  and  brain  have  to  be 
settled  by  it.  The  possession  of  the  vote  has  been,  no  doubt,  a 
great  education  for  masses  of  men,  as  probably  the  local  gov- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  255 

ernment  vote  will  be  for  English  women.  But  the  great  male  trade 
unions  were  built  up  and  their  liberties  won,  in  England,  before 
•household  suffrage  in  1867 ;  nor  has  the  mere  possession  of  the 
vote  done  much  for  the  agricultural  laborer  since  1884. 

The  suffrage  for  men  is  a  recognition  of  the  reality  of  things. 
Men  have  made  the  modern  political  state,  they  only  can  main- 
tain it,  and  they  must  govern  it.  In  the  case  of  womien — outside 
the  local  government  field — the  vote  would  be  out  of  correspond- 
ence with  facts,  and  it  would  rest  on  unreality. 

But  the  intellectual,  the  moral  and  the  industrial  life  are 
created  by  a  hundred  forces  other  than  the  political  force,  and 
from  the  exercise  of  no  one  of  them  are  women  shut  out. 
What  we  have  to  do  is  to  press  forward  in  all  these  fields ;  and 
it  is  possible,  even  probable,  that  women's  influence  in  them, 
exercised  apart  from  the  ordinary  political  machine,  will  be  all 
the  stronger  and  all  the  healthier. 

This  is  no  mere  "Hearth  and  fireside"  argument.  The  time 
has  gone  by,  if  it  ever  existed,  when  a  woman  can  be  said  to 
have  no  interest  beyond  her  home.  On  the  contrary,  the  public 
life  of  the  modern  state  cannot  do  without  women.  It  seems 
to  me  a  discredit  to  America  that  women  are  not  more  officially 
and  universally  concerned  in  those  public  matters  of  local  ad- 
ministration where  they  are  as  competent  and  as  much  needed  as 
men.  But  if  we  are  wise  we  women,  both  of  England  and 
America,  shall  let  what  we  may  call  the  imperial  franchise,  in 
both  countries,  alone.  If  we  are  true  patriots  we  shall  not 
-claim  it,  we  shall  concern  ourselves  in  local  and  social  admin- 
istration ;  in  legislation  and  politics  we  shall  endeavor  to  bring 
the  powers  of  thought  and  education  to  bear,  together,  perhaps, 
with  such  special  machinery  as  I  tried  to  indicate  in  the  earlier 
part  of  this  paper ;  but  we  shall  not  ask  for  power  where  we 
-can  have  no  true  responsibility. 

There  is  a  greatness  in  self-restraint,  as  there  is  a  greatness 
in  self-assertion.  Let  us  insist  with  all  our  will  on  our  public 
right  to  educate  children,  to  have  a  say  in  reforming  the 
dwellings  of  the  poor,  in  the  moral  and  physical  purification  of 
our  towns,  in  the  brightening  of  our  country  life,  in  the  na- 
tional care  of  the  sick  and  insane,  and  upon  equal  opportunities 
with  men  in  the  realms  of  science  and  art.     But  let  us,  in  the 


256  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

name  of  common-sense,  leave  to  men  the  franchise  which  de- 
termines war  and  peace,  diplomacy  and  finance,  and  those  vast 
industrial  affairs  which  are  exclusively  masculine — the  franchise 
which  elects  the  president  and  Congress,  and  puts  a  British 
prime  minister  in  power. 

Nineteenth  Century.  64:  343-52.  August,  1908. 

Women's  Anti-Suffrage  Movement. 
Mary  Augusta  Ward    (Mrs.   Humphry  Ward.) 

The  women  of  to-day,  who  oppose  female  suffrage,  can  no 
longer  content  themselves  with  "Appeals"  or  "Remonstrances." 
We  have  reached  perhaps  the  crisis  of  the  movement,  and  an  ac- 
tive propaganda  must  be  met  by  one  no  less  active.  Last 
year  the  first  steps  in  opposition  were  taken,  and  in  a  few 
weeks  37,000  signatures  were  collected.  This  year  a  National 
Women's  Anti-Suffrage  League  has  been  started,  evoking  the 
same  instant  and  widespread  response,  and  on  the  21st  of  July 
a  crowded  meeting,  under  the  presidency  of  the  Countess  of 
Jersey,  was  held  at  the  Westminster  Palace  Hotel  for  the  pur- 
pose of  approving  the  constitution,  and  adopting  the  manifesto 
of  the  new  league. 

The  manifesto  ran  as  follows : 

1.  It  is  time  that  the  women  who  are  opposed  to  the  con- 
cession of  the  parliamentary  franchise  to  women  should  make 
themselves  fully  and  widely  heard.  The  arguments  on  the  other 
side  have  been  put  with  great  ability  and  earnestness,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  and  enforced  by  methods  legitimate  and  il- 
legitimate. 

2.  An  anti-suffrage  league  has  therefore  been  formed,  and 
all  women  who  sympathize  with  its  object  are  earnestly  request- 
ed to  join  it. 

3.  The  matter  is  urgent.  Unless  those  who  hold  that  the 
success  of  the  women's  suffrage  movement  would  bring  disaster 
upon  England  are  prepared  to  take  immediate  and  effective 
action,  judgment  may  go  by  default  and  our  company  drift 
towards  a  momentous  revolution,  both  social  and  political,  be- 
ifore  it  has  realized  the  dangers  involved. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  257 

4.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  concession  of  the  franchise 
is  "inevitable,"  and  that  a  claim  of  this  kind  once  started  and 
vehemently  pressed  must  be  granted.  Let  those  who  take  this 
view  consider  the  case  of  America.  A  vigorous  campaign  in 
favor  of  women's  suffrage  has  been  carried  on  in  the  states 
for  more  than  a  generation.  After  forty  years  the  American 
agitation  has  been  practically  defeated.  The  English  agitation 
must  be  defeated  in  the  same  way  by  steady  work  and  argument 
of  women  themselves. 

5.  Let  us  state  the  main  reason  why  this  league  opposes  the 
concession  of  the  parliamentary  vote  to  women : 

(a)  Because  the  spheres  of  mien  and  women,  owing  to 
natural  causes,  are  essentially  different,  and  therefore  their  share 
in  the  management  of  the  state  should  be  different. 

(b)  Because  the  complex  modern  state  depends  for  its 
very  existence  on  naval  and  military  power,  diplomacy,  finance, 
and  the  great  mining,  constructive,  shipping  and  transport  in- 
dustries, in  none  of  which  can  women  take  any  practical  part. 
Yet  it  is  upon  these  matters,  and  the  vast  interests  involved  in 
them,  that  the  work  of  Parliament  largely  turns. 

(c)  Because  by  the  concession  of  the  local  government  vote 
and  the  admission  of  women  to  county  and  borough  councils, 
the  nation  has  opened  a  wide  sphere  of  public  work  and  influence 
to  women,  which  is  within  their  powers.  To  make  proper  use 
of  it,  however,  will  tax  all  the  energies  that  women  have  to 
spare,  apart  from  the  care  of  the  home  and  the  development  of 
the  individual  life. 

(d)  Because  the  influence  of  women  in  social  causes  will 
be  diminished  rather  than  increased  by  the  possession  of  the 
parliamentary  vote.  At  present  they  stand,  in  matters  of  social 
reform,  apart  from  and  beyond  party  politics,  and  are  listened 
to  accordingly.  The  legitimate  influence  of  woman  in  politics — 
in  all  classes,  rich  and  poor — ^will  always  be  in  proportion  to  their 
education  and  common  sense.  But  the  deciding  power  of  the 
parliamentary  vote  should  be  left  to  men,  whose  physical  force 
is  ultimately  responsible  for  the  conduct  of  the  state. 

(e)  Because  all  the  reforms  which  are  put  forward  as  rea- 
sons for  tbe  vote  can  be  obtained  by  other  means  than  the  vote, 
as  is  proved  by  the  general  history  of  the  laws  relating  to  women 


25.8  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

and  children  during  the  past  century.  The  channels  of  public 
opinion  are  always  freely  open  to  women.  Moreover,  the  serv- 
ices which  women  can  with  advantage  render  to  the  nation  in 
the  field  of  social  and  educational  reform,  and  in  the  investiga- 
tion of  social  problems,  have  been  recognized  by  Parliament. 
Women  have  been  included  in  royal  commissions,  and  admitted 
to  a  share  in  local  government.  The  true  path  of  progress  seems 
to  lie  in  further  development  along  these  lines.  Representative 
women,  for  instance,  might  be  brought  into  closer  consultative 
relation  with  government  departments,  in  matters  where  the 
special  interests  of  women  are  concerned. 

(f)  Because  any  measure  for  the  enfranchisement  of  women 
must  either  (i)  concede  the  vote  to  women  on  the  same  terms 
as  to  men,  and  thereby  in  practice  involve  an  unjust  and  in- 
vidious limitation;  or  (2)  by  giving  the  vote  to  wives  of  voters 
tend  to  the  introduction  of  political  differences  into  domestic 
life ;  or  (3)  by  the  adoption  of  adult  suffrage,  which  seems  the 
inevitable  result  of  admitting  the  principle,  place  the  female 
vote  in  an  overpowering  majority. 

(g)  Because,  finally,  the  danger  which  might  arise  from 
the  concession  of  woman  suffrage,  in  the  case  of  a  state  burdened 
with  such  complex  and  far-reaching  responsibilities  as  England, 
is  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  risk  run  by  those  smaller  com- 
munities which  have  adopted  it.  The  admission  to  full  political 
power  of  a  number  of  voters  debarred  by  nature  and  circum- 
stance from  the  average  political  knowledge  and  experience  open 
to  men,  would  weaken  the  central  governing  forces  of  the  state, 
and  be  fraught  with  peril  to  the  country.  Women  who  hold 
these  views  must  now  organize  in  their  support. 

6.  We  appeal,  therefore,  to  those  who  disapprove  the  present 
suffrage  agitation,  to  join  our  league,  and  to  support  it  by  every 
means  in  their  power. 

Upon   this   text  the   following   speech   was   delivered: 

"As  to  the  reasons  for  the  fight,  we  are  probably  all  pretty 
much  agreed  in  this  room.  Women  are  'not  undevelcped  men 
but  diverse,'  and  the  more  complex  the  development  of  any  state, 
the  more  diverse.  Difference,  not  inferiority — it  is  ,on  that  we 
take  our  stand.    The  modern  state  depends  for  its  very  existence 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  259 

— and  no  juggling  with  facts  can  get  rid  of  the  truth — on  the 
physical  force  of  men,  combined  with  the  trained  and  specialized 
knowledge  which  men  alone  are  able  to  get,  because  women,  on 
whom  the  child-bearing  and  child-rearing  of  the  world  rest,  have 
no  time  and  no  opportunity  to  get  it.  The  difference  in  these  re- 
spects between  even  the  educated  man  and  the  educated  woman — 
exceptions  apart — is  evident  to  us  all.  Speaking  generally,  the 
man's  mere  daily  life  as  breadwinner,  as  merchant,  engineer, 
official,  or  manufacturer,  gives  him  a  practical  training  that  is 
not  open  to  women.  The  pursuit  of  advanced  science,  the  con- 
stantly developing  applications  of  sciences  to  industry  and  life, 
the  great  system  of  the  world's  commerce  and  finance,  the  funda- 
mental activities  of  railways  and  shipping,  the  hard  physical 
drudgery,  in  fact,  of  the  world,  day  by  day— not  to^  speak  of 
naval  and  military  affairs,  and  of  that  diplomacy  which  protects 
us  and  our  children  from  war — these  are  male,  conceived  and  ex- 
ecuted by  men.  The  work  of  Parliament  turns  upon  them,  assumes 
them  at  every  turn.  That  so  many  ignorant  male  voters  have  to  be 
called  into  the  nation's  councils  upon  them,  is  the  penalty  we 
pay  for  what  on  the  whole  are  the  great  goods  of  democracy. 
But  this  ignorance-vote  is  large  enough  in  all  conscience,  when 
one  considers  the  risks  of  the  modern  state ;  and  to  add  to  it 
yet  another,  where  the  ignorance  is  imposed  by  nature  and  ir- 
reparable— the  vote  of  women  who  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases 
are  debarred  by  their  mere  sex  from  that  practical  political  ex- 
perience which  is  at  least  always  open  to  men — could  any  pro- 
ceeding be  more  dangerous,  more  unreasonable?  The  women 
who  ask  it — able,  honorable,  noble  women  though  they  be — are 
not  surely  true  patriots,  in  so  far  as  they  ask  it.  There  is  a 
greatness  in  self-restraint  as  well  as  in  self-assertion ;  and  to 
embarrass  the  difficult  work  of  men,  in  matters  where  men's 
experience  alone  provides  the.  materials  for  judgment,  is  not  to 
help  women.  On  the  contrary.  We  are  mothers,  wives,  and 
sisters  of  men,  and  we  know  that  our  interests  are  bound  up 
with  the  best  interests  of  men,  and  that  to  claim  to  do  their  work 
as  well  as  our  own  is  to  injure  both. 

"But  we  shall  be  told  there  is  a  vast  field  where  men  and 
women  are  equally  concerned — the  field  of  industrial  and  domes- 
tic legislation — and  that  women  here  ought  to  have  an  equal  voice. 


26o  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

And  if  there  were  any  practical  possibility  of  dividing  up  the 
work  of  Parliament,  so  that  women  should  vote  on  only  those 
matters  where  they  are  equally  concerned  with  men,  there 
would  be  a  great  deal  to  be  said  for  a  special  franchise  of  the 
kind.  But  there  is  no  such  possibility.  Mr.  Gladstone  tried 
something  like  it  when  in  the  case  of  the  first  Home  Rule  Bill 
he  endieavored  to  draw  a  line  between  certain  subjects  and 
others,  in  the  case  of  the  Irish  members.  We  all  know  that  he 
failed.  The  work  of  Parliament  is  one  and  indivisible.  The 
handling  of  every  subject  bears  on  the  Handling  of  every  other, 
and  the  vote  once  given,  can^only  carry  with  it  the  whole  range 
of  parliamentary  power. 

"But  what  then?  Are  women  without  power  over  the  subjects 
that  specially  concern  them,  because  they  are  and,  as  we  hope, 
will  remain  without  the  parliamentary  vote. 

"By  no  means.  They  have  first  of  all  the  power  which  will 
always  belong,  vote  or  no  vote,  to  knowledge  and  experience 
wherever  they  are  to  be  found.  During  the  last  half-century, 
as  the  education  of  women  has  advanced,  and  as  their  experience 
has  been  enlarged,  their  influence  upon  public  men  and  upon 
legislation  has  steadily  increased.  Not  a  single  bill  is  now 
passed  bearing  on  the  special  interests  of  women  and  children, 
but  women  are  anxiously  consulted.  When  the  special  schools 
for  defective  children  were  constituted  throughout  the  country, 
the  influence  of  women  shaped  the  law  at  every  successive  stage ; 
when  the  Midwives  Act  was  passed,  it  was  not,  as  Mrs.  Pank- 
hurst  says,  'passed  by  men  without  consulting  women' — it  was, 
as  I  happened  to  know,  mainly  the  work  of  a  group  of  energetic 
and  clearheaded  women,  who  proved  their  point  and  achieved 
their  reform,  even  against  a  strong  masculine  opposition.  The 
Probation  of  Offenders  Act  of  last  year  was  framed  throughout 
in  consultation  with  women  possessed  of  expert  knowledge  and 
experience;  and  as  for  the  Children's  Bill  of  this  session,  this 
children's  Charter,  which  does  Mr.  Samuel  such  honor,  it  could 
not  have  been  drawn  up  without  the  advice  and  help  of  women, 
which  it  has  had  throughout.  Women  moreover,  are  now  placed 
on  royal  commissions,  and  we  may  be  very  sure  that  the  in- 
fluence of  Mrs. "Sidney  Webb  on  the  Poor  Law  commission  is  at 
least  equal  to  that  of  any  man  upon  it. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  261 

''But  this  is  not  all.  Women  have  not  only  the  influence 
given  them  by  special  knowledge  and  ability,  knowledge  which 
enables  them  now  in  all  fields  to  represent  and  speak  for  their 
sex ;  they  have  also  freely  open  to  them,  whether  as  electors  or 
elected,  the  immense  field  of  local  governm,ent.  They  have  had 
the  municipal  vote  for  thirty-seven  years ;  they  have  long  been 
eligible  as  Poor  Law  guardians,  as  parish  or  district  councillors, 
and  they  have  now  been  made  eligible  as  county  and  borough 
councillors.  If  anyone  will  take  up  any  competent  book  on  local 
government  and  look  at  the  powers  of  county  and  borough 
councils,  he  will  ask  himself,  I  think,  how  long  will  it  be  before 
women  overtake  or  fill  the  immense  sphere  which  has  been  here 
opened  to  them?  They  have  not,  indeed,  shown  any  great 
zeal  to  fill  it.  The  women's  vote  has  been  extremely  small,  ex- 
cept when  some  exciting  cause  has  intervened — not  unlike  the 
men,  however,  in  this !  But  all  the  time,  if  the  vote  were  really 
the  talisman  that  the  Suffragists  proclaim,  what  women  might 
have  done  in  local  government! — what  they  still   might  do ! 

*'  Tf  we  get  the  vote,'  says  one  of  the  suffragist  leaflets, 
^more  attention  would  be  given  to  the  condition  of  the  children, 
to  the  care  of  the  sick  and  aged,  to  education,'  and  so  on.  But 
meanwhile  all  sorts  of  powers  are  lying  unused  under  the  hands 
of  women.  There  has  been  much  talk,  for  instance,  of  the 
evils  of  street  trading  for  children  of  school  age.  But  this 
is  a  matter  which  depends  entirely  upon  the  county  council;  and 
if  the  women's  vote  in  London,  which  they  have  now  possessed 
for  thirty  years  or  more,  had  been  properly  used  and  directed, 
street  trading  could  have  been  made  impossible.  Organized 
playgrounds  again  for  children  throughout  London  could  have 
been  established,  as  they  have  been  established  in  Boston  and 
New  York;  a  hundred  things  could  have  been  done  for  chil- 
dren, if  voters  and  organizers  had  so  willed  it.  Meanwhile,  the 
need  for  women  school  managers  of  a  capable  sort  throughout 
London  is  really  urgent.  In  the  cripple  schools  with  which  I  have 
been  specially  connected,  we  cannot  get  women  enough  to  do  the 
work  which  urgently  wants  doing  for  these  delicate  and  helpless 
children.  And  meanwhile  good  brains  and  skilled  hands  are 
being  diverted  from  women's  real  tasks  to  this  barren  agitation 
for  equal  rights  with  men,  in  men's  own  field,  this  sex-rivalry, 
which  has  too  often  masqueraded  as  reform. 


262  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

"Two  arguments  often  used  in  the  controversy  are  not. 
touched  in  the  manifesto,  which  had  of  necessity  to  be  short. 
But  they  have  had  remarkable  influence  upon  the  working  popu- 
lation of  the  north.  I  mean  (i)  the  argument,  that  the  posses- 
sion of  the  vote  would  raise  the  wages  of  women  to  an  equality 
with  those  of  men ;  (2)  that  hygienic  regulation  of  the  employ- 
ment of  women — married  women  especially — should  not  be  im- 
posed on  women  without  their  consent,  expressed  through  the 
vote. 

"Heavy  indeed  is  the  responsibility  of  those  who  are  teach- 
ing an  excitable  factory  population  that  the  possession  of  a  vote 
will  raise  their  wages  !  If  this  were  even  remotely  true,  would 
the  average  wage  of  the  agricultural  laborer ,  twenty-four  years 
after  his  political  enfranchisement,  be  still  15s.  or  i6s.  a  week? 
Would  all  that  mass  of  low-paid  male  labor  disclosed  by  Mr. 
Rowntree's  book  on  York,  or  Mr.  Booth's  London,  still  exist — 
if  the  vote  could  remedy  it? 

"The  reasons  why  women's  wage  is  generally  lower  than 
that  of  men  are  partly  economic,  partly  physical.  There  are 
more  women  than  men ;  men  are  stronger  than  women ;  there  is 
far  more  competition  for  men's  labor ;  marriage  and  the  expec- 
tation of  marriage  affect  the  industrial  value  of  women's  work 
unfavorably;  and  above  all  the  organization  of  women's  labor 
is  still  backward  and  weak. 

"Many  causes  now  in  operation  will,  we  hope,  tend  in  time  to 
the  better  payment  of  women ;  the  more  even  spread  of  the 
world's  population,  better  training,  better  organization,  and  so 
on.  But  to  teach  the  laboring  women  of  England  that  a  parlia- 
mentary vote  is  of  itself  to  raise  wages  and  bring  them  the 
economic  millennium,  is,  as  it  seems  to  me,  to  poison  the  wells 
of  thought  and  action  among  them,  and  to  increase  instead  of 
lightening  the  burdens  on  our  sex. 

"As  to  factory  regulations,  the  opinion  of  women  in  the  mat- 
ter, trained  and  experienced  women,  has  been  of  increasing" 
importance  with  the  government  for  many  years  past.  I  believe 
I  am  not  wrong  in  saying  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the 
recent  reforms  in  factory  legislation  for  women  and  children  are 
due  to  the  reports  of  women  inspectors,  in  daily  contact  with  the 
people,  and  bringing  their  trained  knowledge  to  bear.     But  let 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  263 

us  ask  a  further  question.  Is  the  work  of  married  women  in 
factories  the  concern  only  of  women?  Not  at  all.  It  is  the  con- 
cern of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  who  are  the  trustees  for  and  the 
guardians  of  the  coming  generation." 


North  American  Review.  161:  257-67.  September,  1895. 

Why  Women  Do  Not  Want  the  Ballot. 
William   Croswell   Doane. 

Whether  we  like  it  or  not,  the  question  of  giving  the  ballot 
to  women  is  a  question  to  be  faced.  From  the  last  legislature  of 
the  state  of  New  York  favorable  action  was  secured  on  the 
proposal  to  submit  to  popular  vote  the  omission  of  the  word 
"male"  from  the  qualification  of  voters  in  the  constitution.  This 
is  of  course  only  tentative  and  preliminary.  Another  legislature 
must  pass  the  law  before  it  can  be  submitted  to  the  people.  But 
it  behooves  men  and  women  who  are  opposed  to  it  to  be  awake  to 
the  duty  of  hindering  its  further  progress. 

It  seems  important,  in  view  of  the  renewed  effort  in  Albany 
this  coming  winter,  to  appeal  to  the  sober-minded  thought  of 
men  and  women ;  to  omit  rhetoric,  oratory,  abuse,  misrepresenta- 
tion, and  ask  for  a  serious  consideration  of  a  subject,  certainly 
fraught  with  grave  and  serious  consequences ;  for  anything  that 
touches  the  ballot  touches  the  foundations  of  government. 
Among  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  whole  question  now  are 
the  indifference  and  listlessness,  or  the  frivolity  and  trifling 
with  which  in  too  many  instances  it  is  regarded.  Many  a  man 
says:  "Oh!  let  the  experiment  be  tried;  it  cannot  succeed;  it 
will  do  no  harm  to  pay  women  the  courtesy  of  this  compli- 
mentary vote,  and  then  defeat  it  at  the  polls."  But  this  is  an 
experiment  too  much  like  playing  with  fire  to  be  safe.  Once 
granted,  it  can  never  be  recalled.  And  the  risk  of  random  voting 
on  matters  of  such  importance  is  too  great  to  be  run.  Many  a 
woman  opposed  to  the  mieasure  feels  that  the  whole  thought  of 
signing  petitions,  and  having  her  name  printed,  and  appealing  to 
the  legislature,  is  so  distasteful  to  her,  that  she  would  prefer  to 
take  the  chance  of  probable   failure.     Meanwhile,  the  advocates 


264  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

pile  up  petitions,  and  multiply  unmeaning  names.  Many  a  man 
trifles  with  his  responsibility,  under  the  silly  idea  that  it  is  un- 
gallant  to  say  ''No"  to  a  woman.  And  many  a  wpman  laughs  at 
the  whole  matter  as  a  joke,  mixed  up  with  bicycles  and  bloomers,, 
and  a  number  of  other  trivial  questions-  which  have  no  re- 
motest relation  to  the  principle  involved. 

Let  us  look  fairly  and  squarely  at  the  facts.  There  is  one 
class  of  women  to  be  eliminated  from  the  discussion,  because 
they  fly  into  a  ''frenzy"  which  is  not  ''fine,"  mistake  abuse  for 
argument,  and  are  only  vulgarly  violent,  with  sharp  tongues  or 
sharper  pens  saturated  with  bitterness  and  venom.  They  are,, 
if  there  were  only  such  as  these,  their  own  best  answerers,  fur- 
nishing sufficient  reason  against  the  movement.  There  is  another 
class  which  includes  members  of  both  sexes,  with  whom  one 
cannot  deal  without  sacrificing  self-respect  or  reverence,  who 
revile  all  that  one  holds  in  holiest  veneration,  Holy  Scripture, 
holy  matrimony,  St.  Paul,  even  our  dear  Lord  Himself.  How 
reverent  and  religious  women  can  cast  their  lot  in  with  a  cause 
which  has  this  drift  in  it  is  inconceivable;  and  yet  some  of  them 
do  so.  One  has  neither  need  nor  desire  to  make  reply  to  such 
as  these.  They  may  be  safely  left,  when  the  sediment  has 
gathered  at  the  bottom,  and  shows  through  the  quietness  of  the 
settled  surface,  to  their  own  condemnation. 

But  the  cause  has  among  its  adherents  and  advocates  a  very 
different  class  of  women  and  men,  to  whose  sober  second  thought 
it  is  worth  while  to  appeal,  and  against  whose  specious  but  sin- 
cere reasonings  others  need  to  be  warned  and  guarded.  It  is 
because  of  these,  and  of  their  reasonings,  that  this  paper  is 
written.  It  is  not  intended  to  argue  the  underlying  principles  of 
the  case,  which  have  been  argued  abundantly  already,  but  only 
to  assert  them. 

1.  Suffrage  is  not  a  right  of  anybody.  It  is  a  privilege 
granted  by  the  constitution  to  such  persons  as  the  framers  of 
the  constitution  and  the  founders  of  the  government  deem  best. 

2.  The  old  political  proverb,  "No  taxation  without  repre- 
sentation," is  utterly  inapplicable  to  this  question.  It  grew  out 
of  the  tyrannical  action  of  a  government  "across  the  sea,"  in 
which  no  one  of  all  the  people  on  whom  the  tax  was  levied  had 
the  faintest  voice  in  the  framing  of  the  laws  or  in  the  choice  of 


WOMAN .  SUFFRAGE  265: 

the  government.  We  may  be  said  to  have  in  this  country  a  great 
deal  of  representation  without  taxation,  because,  in  thousands  of 
instances,  voters,  and  indeed  the  very  men  who  impose  the  tax, 
own  no  property  at  all.  But  women  who  are  taxed  are  represent- 
ed by  their  relatives,  by  their  potent  influence,  and  by  men's 
sense  of  justice,  amounting  even  to  chivalry,  which  the  woman 
suffragists  are  doing  all  they  can  to  destroy,  but  which  has, 
secured  to  them  far  more  protection,  far  more  independent  con- 
trol of  their  property,  than  men  have  reserved  to  themselves. ^ 
The  complement  and  object  of  taxation  is  not  the  right  to  vote, 
but  the  protection  of  property.  And  women's  property  is  better 
protected  than  men's. 

3.  Equality  does  not  mean  identity  of  duties,  rights,  privi- 
leges, occupations.  The  sex  differences  are  proof  enough  of  this. 
The  paths  in  which  men  and  women  are  set  to  walk  are  parallel, 
but  not  the  same.  And  the  equilibrium  of  society  cannot  be  main- 
tained, nor  the  equipoise  of  the  body,  unless  this  is  recognized. 
As  St.  Paul  put  it  forcibly  long  ago:  *'If  the  whole  body  were 
hearing,  where  were  the  smelling?"  Over-stocked  professions,,, 
men  and  women  crowding  each  other  in  and  out  of  occupations, 
neglected  duties,  responsibilities  divided  until  they  are  destroyed, 
must  be  the  result  if  this  unnatural  idea  be  enforced. 

4.  The  theory  of  increased  wages  for  women,  to  be  secured 
by  giving  votes  to  women-workers,  is  equally  preposterous. 
Wages,  like  work,  are  regulated  by  the  unfailing  law  of  supply 
and  demand.  Work  cannot  be  created,  and  wages  cannot  be 
forced  up.  If  there  are  too  many  workers  there  will  be  less  em- 
ployment and  lower  pay. 

These  are  some  of  the  fundamental  and  axiomatic  truths  of 
the  argument. 

It  is  important,  too,  to  guard  against  the  specious  method  of 
mixing  up  things  that  have  no  relation  to  each  other.  A  man  or 
a  woman  who  opposes  the  forcing  of  the  ballot  upon  women  is 
classed  with  the  people  who  dislike  female  bicyclists  and  the 
bloomer  costume — questions  of  taste  about  which  we  -may  differ, 
but  which  lie  upon  the  lower  plane  of  aesthetics.  The  unattrac- 
tiveness  of  an  ugly  dress  or  an  ungraceful  movement  may  repel 
a  man's  feelings  and  lessen  the  charm  of  a  woman,  but  there  it  : 
ends.     Women    may   ride   bicycles   and   wear  bloomers    without ; 


266  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

violating  any  political  principle,  provided  they  neither  ride  on 
the  one,  nor  walk  in  the  other,  to  the  polls. 

It  is  still  more  important  to  draw  another  distinction.  The 
slavery  of  American  women  exists  only  in  the  warped  imagina- 
tions and  heated  rhetoric  of  a  few  people,  who  have  screamed 
themselves  hoarse  upon  platforms  or  written  themselves  into  a 
rage  in  newspapers.  There  is  no  freer  human  being  on  earth 
to-day,  thank  God,  than  the  American  woman.  She  has  freedom 
of  person,  of  property,  and  of  profession,  absolute  and  entire. 
She  has  all  liberty  that  is  not  license. 

Let  a  woman  tell  the  facts.  I  quote  from  one  of  Mrs.  Schuy- 
ler Van  Rensselaer's  admirable  papers  in  the  New  York  World : 

"For  more  than  thirty  years  all  the  women  of  New  York 
have  been  able  to  enjoy  their  own  property,  whether  inherited 
or  acquired,  without  control  or  interference  from  any  man.  A 
married  woman  may  carry  on  a  trade,  business,  or  profession 
and  keep  her  earniiigs  for  herself  alone.  She  may  sue  and  be 
sued  and  make  contracts  as  freely  and  independently  as  an  un- 
married woman  or  a  man.  She  may  sell  or  transfer  her  real  as 
well  as  her  personal  property  just  as  she  chooses.  And  she  is  not 
liable  for  her  husband's  debts:  or  obliged  to  contribute  to  his 
support.  Meanwhile,  a  husband  is  obliged  to  support  his  wife 
and  children.  He  is  liable  for  the  price  of  all  'necessaries- 
purchased  by  her,  and  for  money  borrowed  by  her  for  their  pur- 
chase; and  'necessaries'  are  liberally  construed  as  'commensur- 
ate with  her  husband's  means,  her  wonted  living  as  his  spouse, 
and   her  station   in   the   community.' 

"A  man  who  obtains  a  divorce  cannot  ask  for  alimony;  a 
woman  who  obtains  one  is  entitled  to  it,  and  to  continue  to  re- 
ceive it  even  if  she  remarries.  A  woman  in  business  cannot  be 
arrested  in  an  action  for  a  debt  fraudulently  contracted,  as  a  man 
may  be.  Every  woman  enjoys  certain  exemptions  from  the  sale 
of  her  property  under  execution,  but  only  a  man  who  has  and 
provides  for  a  household  or  family  is  exempt  in  the  same  way. 
A  woman  is  entitled  to  one-third  of  her  husband's  real  estate 
at  his  death,  and  cannot  be  deprived  of  it  by  will;  and  no  real 
estate  can  be  sold  by  him>  during  his  lifetime  unless  she  signs 
off  this  dower  right.  A  husband's  right  to  a  portion  of  his  wife's 
property  begins  only  after  the  birth  of  a  living  chi'd  and  even 
then  she  need  not  have  his  consent  to  sell  it  during  her  lifetime, 
and  may  deprive  him  of  it  altogether  by  will." 

While  one  "forbears  threatenings,"  it  is  worth  while  to 
wonder  whether  this  would  go  on  if  the  relations  of  the  sexes  to 
each  other  were  changed.  Courtesies  that  are  compelled  by  law 
would  soon  become  onerous.  Instincts  that  were  required  by 
statute  would  become  irksome,  until  they  were  laid  aside.  A 
man  jostled  at  the  polls  and  in  the  primary  meetings  would  be 
less  inclined  to  step  aside  or  stand  up  elsewhere  to  give  a  woman 
place. 

The  almost  uniform  method  of  confusing  questions,  resorted 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  267- 

to  so  constantly  in  the  attacks  of  the  woman  suffragists,  must 
be  protested  against  to  the  end.  Giving  a  woman  the  ballot  has. 
nothing  whatever  to  do  with  her  higher  education,  with  her 
choice  of  occupations,  with  the  part  she  may  take  in  the  discus- 
sion of  public  questions,  or  with  her  share  in  the  administration, 
of  public  interests.  Along  the  lines  of  their  distinctive  ability,, 
and  in  the  ways  of  their  natural  adaptation,  no  sane  man  ques- 
tions the  wisdom  and  the  duty  of  the  highest  education  for 
women,  of  the  freest  following  out  of  their  vocations,  of  the  im- 
portance of  their  intelligent  knowledge,  and  the  value  of  their- 
expressed  opinions  in  great  moral  and  social  public  questions,, 
and  of  their  capacity  in  certain  offices  of  responsibility,  duty  and. 
trust. 

So  far  as  to  principles,  and  fairness  of  methods  in  argument.. 
And  now  for  the  appeal  to  serious  men  and  women,  for  the 
serious  consideration  of  this  most  serious  question.  The  appeal 
is  rightly  made,  first,  in  behalf  of  the  women  of  America  who. 
are  earnestly  opposed  to  the  imposition  upon  them  of  a  burden 
which,  from  their  point  of  view,  not  only  is  not  a  duty,  but  is 
an  evil;  not  only  not  a  right,  but  actually  a  wrong.  It  is  very 
easy,  by  the  process  that  is  sometimes  called  "counting  noses,"' 
to  say  that  this  is  a  matter  of  minorities,  and  that  majorities 
must  rule.  But,  like  many  other  arguments  in  favor  of  this 
cause,  the  statement  is  based  upon  the  "take-things-for-granted"' 
plan.  Given  a  large  body  of  earnest  agitators  (some  of  them 
paid  agents  who  live  by  the  agitation),  and  everybody  knows 
that  numberless  signatures  may  be  obtained  to  a  petition  for 
almost  anything — names  of  indifferent,  unintelligent,  brow-beaten 
and  button-holed  people,  who  sign  rather  than  argue,  and  assent 
in  the  spirit  of  lazy  complaisance,  rather  than  offend  the  asker 
by  refusing.  Such  signatures  mean  nothing,  although  they  swell 
the  number  into  a  more  than  millenary  petition,  and  make  it 
more  or  less  miles  long.  Not  for  a  moment  disputing  the  fact 
that  some  of  the  narnes  stand  for  intelligence  and  intention,, 
for  conviction  and  conscience,  that  they  represent  education, 
social  position,  tax-paying  interest,  I  claim,  from  my  own  large 
and  long  experience,  that,  in  any  community  with  which  I  am- 
acquainted,  the  most  serious,  intelligent,  cultivated  women,  with 
the  largest  money  interest  in  the  government,  and  the  most  quiet,. 


268  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

thoughtful,  earnest  women,  are,  conscientiously  and  on  clear 
convictions,  opposed  to  woman  suffrage.  I  insist  that  it  is  a 
wrong  to  force  such  women  to  the  alternative  of  going  to  the 
polls,  against  their  instincts  and  their  convictions,  or  of  allowing 
the  unthinking  majority  of  votes  to  be  enlarged  by  the  ballots 
of  women  carried  away  by  a  theory,  or  influenced  by  a  desire 
for  power.  What  the  result  would  be  is  matter  of  conjecture; 
but  my  conviction  is  that  it  would  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible, 
to  bring  the  great  mass  of  really  intelligent  and  responsible 
women  to  vote,  against  their  ingrained  habits,  their  instincts, 
their  inclinations,  and  their  judgments.  And  it  is  important 
to  stop  and  consider  what  that  means.  The  old'  proverb  applies 
here  of  the  horse  dragged  to  the  water,  which  cannot  be  made 
to  drink.  Legislation  may  be  secured  that  will  say  to  every 
woman :  "You  shall  have  the  privilege  of  voting" ;  but,  after  all, 
it  means  only  "may,"  and  you  cannot  put  the  verb  into  the 
imperative  and  say :  "You  shall  vote." 

There  are  two  factors  of  grave  danger  in  the  political  issues 
and  elections  of  America.  First  of  all,  the  religious  question, 
which,  guard  it  as  we  will,  crops  up  from  time  to  time,  in  appro- 
priations to  charities  or  schools  or  religious  organizations,  or  in 
fanatical  fury  against  some  form  of  religious  order  and  belief. 
There  have  been  two  noted  instances,  at  least,  in  which  the 
danger  has  been  shadowed  forth  in  the  arraying  of  Protestants 
against  Roman  Catholics.  In  one  case,  the  violent  stirring  up  of 
Protestant  women  abor.t  a  school  question  produced  an  angry 
contest,  in  which  the  Protestants  carried  the  day;  while  in  the 
other,  after  a  careful  canvass,  quietly  made  among  Protestant 
women,  the  summons  of  a  single  Roman  priest  mustered  a  force 
of  female  voters,  always  liable  to  be  controlled  by  clerical  direc- 
tion, which  carried  the  day  for  Rome.  And  the  dregs  and  debris 
of  the  contest  were  bitter  and  wretched  to  a  degree.  It  is  to  the 
infinite  honor  of  women  that  they  are  more  quickly  interested, 
more  keenly  concerned,  and  more  deeply  influenced  in  their 
religious  feelings  and  convictions  than  men.  But  it  adds  to  the 
wrong  and  horror  of  allowing  religion  to  be  dragged  into  poli- 
tics, if  on  one  side  or  the  other,  a  great  body  of  voters  could  be 
wielded  by  any  religious  or  ecclesiastical  influence  to  decide  the 
question  and  carry  the  day. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  269 

The  other  factor,  known  and  read  of  all  men,  is  the  venal 
voter — the  man  whose  ballot  is  for  sale  to  the  highest  bidder. 
The  possession  of  the  ballot  has  not  purified  the  male  voter  from 
the  heinous  sin  of  a  sold  vote.  Why  should  it  purify  the  woman? 
It  is  a  well-known  fact  that,  in  all  our  large  cities,  there  is  a 
great  body  of  women  who  sell  themselves,  soul  gind  body.  It  is 
idle  to  stop  and  say  that  men  are  responsible  for  this  horror.  I 
have  no  desire  to  screen  men.  I  believe  the  man  who  sins  against 
purity  is  before  God  a  sinner  equally  with  the  woman.  But  the 
fact  stands  that  a  woman  who  will  sell  her  purity,  her  honor,  her 
reputation,  herself,  will  sell  anything.  And  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  with  its  fifty  thousand  fallen  women,  there  is  this  enor- 
mous and  awful  possibility  of  a  vote  that  might  turn  the  tide  of 
any  election,  purchasable  by  the  highest  bidder,  who  would  nat- 
urally use  his  disreputable  bargain  for  disreputable  and  danger- 
ous ends.  By  some  strange  confusion  of  infantile  innocence, 
unimaginable  ignorance  of  facts,  or  malicious  interpretation  of 
words,  men  who  have  called  attention  to  this  danger  have  been 
accused  of  insulting  their  wives  and  mothers,  or  of  implying 
that  Mrs.  Cady  Stanton  or  Miss  Anthony  would  sell  her  vote. 
But  this  sort  of  answer  is  only  the  action  of  the  cuttle-fish 
which  hides  its  method  of  escape,  or  the  dust  of  the  fleeing  ani- 
mal which  blinds  the  eyes  of  its  pursuer.  The  hideous  fact 
of  the  number  of  degraded  and  venal  women  remains.  The 
awful  fact  of  venal  voters  among  men  remains ;  and  of  the 
equally  criminal  class  of  political  go-betweens,  who  spend  the 
money  of  candidates  and  corporations  in  these  most  illegitimate 
"election  expenses."  And  the  possibility  and  probability  of  the 
increase  of  a  corrupted  ballot  giving,  in  a  close  election,  the 
balance  of  power,  secured  by  a  purchase  of  the  votes  of  women 
lost  to  all  sense  of  shame,  follows  as  an  immediate  and  in- 
evitable danger. 

It  is  constantly  urged  that  women  voters  would  be  more 
conscientious  and  careful  than  men  are,  would  be  always  on 
the  side  of  reform,  would  advance  the  interests  of  temperance 
and  of  all  great  moral  and  social  movements.  But,  in  the  first 
place,  this  is  purely  prophetic,  without  the  inspiration  of 
prophecy.  It  is  mere  guess-work.  To  reach  a  real  conclusion 
through   an   imaginary   premise    is    illogical    to    the    last    degree. 


1270  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

There  are,  perhaps  in  smaller  proportion,  bad  women  as  well 
-as  bad  men,  intemperate  women,  ignorant  women.  In  the  com- 
parisons usually  made  by  the  advocates  of  woman's  suffrage, 
it  is  always  the  virtuous  and  intelligent  woman  who  is  con- 
trasted with  the  ignorant  and  unprincipled  man.  The  fact  is, 
that  to  multiply  suffrage  means  to  multiply  every  kind  of  vote 
by  two,  and  while  it  would  mean  an  increase  of  votes  cast  on 
principle  and  for  principle,  it  would  also  mean  an  increase  of 
unprincipled  votes  against  the  best  interests  of  society.  It  is 
greatly  to  be  doubted  whether  politics,  either  in  its  methods  or 
in  its  results,  would  be  purified  in  this  way.  The  giving  of  the 
ballot  to  men "  has  not  improved  either  the  morals  or  the  re- 
sponsibility of  men.  Why  should  it  make  women  more  moral 
or  more  responsible?  Voting,  after  all,  is  to  a  large  degree 
by  parties  and  for  individuals,  and  there  is  no  such  violence  of 
partisanship  in  the  world  as  the  violence  of  female  partisanship. 
No  one  who  has  heard  a  good  "Primrose  League  lady"  in  Eng- 
land abuse  Mr.  Gladstone  will  question  this.  And  the  condition 
of  feeling  in  the  South  during  and  since  the  war  is  a  painful 
evidence  of  it.  It  was  the  women  of  the  South  who  fanned  the 
flame  of  secession,  who  forced  the  continuance  of  the  hopeless 
strife,  and  who  to-day,  where  there  is  any  spirit  of  out-and-out 
sectionalism,  are  the  unrelenting,  unforgetting,  unforgiving 
southerners.  This  relation  of  the  southern  women  to  the  war  is 
a  serious  note  of  warning,  in  another  direction,  about  "the  wom- 
an in  politics."  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  women  in  the  South 
knew  more,  thought  more,  felt  more,  talked  more  about  politics 
than  the  women  of  the  North.  And  what  was  the  result  and 
effect  of  their  intelligent  interest?  Slavery  and  the  slave  laws, 
with  all  their  frightful  possibilities,  maintained  in  the  time  of 
peace,  and  sectionalism  run  mad  when  the  opportunity  for  the 
war  came ! 

There  are  two  other  considerations  which  cannot  be  omitted 
in  the  study  of  this  subject,  the  family  relation,  and  the  relation 
between  men  and  women  in  the  world.  To-day,  in  the  house- 
hold, the  man  is  the  voter.  Suppose  the  wife  becomes  a  voter 
too.  She  will  either  reproduce  her  husband's  political  views,  and 
there  would  be  in  one  house  two  Democratic  voters,  and  in 
another  tivo  Republican  voters,  where  there  had  been  one.     And 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  271 

this  is  no  gain  towards  a  decision  of  questions.  It  is  only  a 
multiplying  of  ballots,  producing  no  change  of  results.  Or  else 
the  wife  would  take  the  opposite  side  from  her  husband's,  and, 
instantly,  with  all  the  heat  and  violence  of  party  differences  and 
political  disagreements,  a  bone  of  contention  is  introduced  into 
the  home ;  a  new  cause  of  dissension  and  alienation  is  added  to 
the  already  strained  relations  in  many  families.  Then  there  is 
the  question  of  mistress  and  maid.  Shall  the  cook  leave  her 
kitchen  to  cast  a  vote,  which  shall  counterbalance  the  vote  of  the 
mistress,  or  shall  the  employer  undertake  to  control  the  politics 
of  the  "kitchen  cabinet"?  And  all  this,  not  merely  on  the  vot- 
ing day,  or  in  the  deposit  of  the  ballot,  but  the  weeks  before  and 
after  the  election  are  to  be  spent  in  the  heat  of  discussion,  or  in 
the  smart  of  defeat.  The  American  home  is  not  too  sacred  and 
secure  to-day  to  make  it  safe  to  undermine  it  with  the  ex- 
plosive materials  of  politics  and  partisanship.  And  meanwhile, 
as  things  are  now,  the  intelligent  woman,  interested  in  some 
great  measure  of  reform,  has  in  her  hand,  not  the  ability  to 
rival,  offset,  or  double  her  husband's  vote,  but  the  power  of 
her  persuasion,  her  affection,  her  ingenuity,  to  influence  it.  It 
would  be  incredible,  if  it  were  not  shown  to  be  true,  that  any 
large  number  of  thinking  and  intelligent  beings,  knowing,  feel- 
ing, using,  this  tremendous  power,  should  be  willing  to  run  the 
risk  of  losing  it,  by  substituting  a  thing  far  lower  and  feebler 
in  its  stead.  And  with  the  experience  of  what  she  has  gained 
for  her  sex,  with  the  evidence  of  what  voting  men  have  brought 
about  for  her  under  the  influence  of  non-voting  women,  and 
through  solicitude  for  their  interests,  the  rashness  of  this  pro- 
posed experiment  defies  description. 

It  is  perfectly  idle  to  imagine  that  the  relation  between  men 
and  women  in  the  outside  world  can  remain  the  same  when  their 
attitude  to  each  other  is  so  entirely  changed.  With  women 
mingling  in  the  rough  strifes  and  contests  of  political  life,  and 
assuming  positions  and  duties  hitherto  unknown  to  them,  there 
will  inevitably  come  the  quenching  of  that  chivalrous  feeling 
of  men  towards  women,  born  of  the  protection  hitherto  expected 
by  women  and  afforded  by  men,  which  is  the  inspiring  cause  of 
so  large  a  part  of  the  amenities  of  life  and  the  politeness  of 
manners.     And  yet,  just  because  woman  is  physically  weak,  and 


272  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

man  physically  strong,  there  will  be  no  change  in  the  real  neces- 
sities of  things.  One  may  well  look  with  grave  anxiety  at  what 
is  really  a  revolution  of  the  natural  order,  utterly  unable  to  con- 
jecture what  the  results  may  be  when  women  shall  have  become, 
not  only  votresses,  but  \&gis\?itr esses,  mayor^^^^^,  and  alder- 
women.  It  is  the  favorite  habit  of  women  arguing  this  cause 
to  deal  with  it  as  though  woman's  suffrage  were  an  evolution. 
But  it  cannot  fairly  be  considered  as,  in  any  way,  a  progress 
along  the  line  of  that  steady  advance  in  the  power  and  position 
of  women,  which  has  been  wrought  out  by  Christian  civiliza- 
tion. It  would  not  be  progress,  it  would  be  retrogression.  And 
it  is  not  the  least  after  the  manner  of  growth  and  improvement 
in  the  character,  the  education,  or  the  opportunities  of  women. 
It  is  a  new  departure;  an  entire  digression;  a  violent  change, 
and  the  appeal  of  this  article  is  in  a  way  "from  Philip  drunk 
to  Philip  sober."  Certain  women  have  said  so  loudly,  and  so 
often,  that  they  are  "enslaved,"  "reduced  to  a  level  with  idiots," 
"classed  with  criminals,"  "deprived  of  natural  rights,"  "down- 
trodden and  oppressed,"  that  they  have  really  come  to  believe 
it  and  to  make  some  sensible  people  believe  it.  I  trust  that  wiser 
•counsels  may  in  the  end  prevail.  Meanwhile,  inasmuch  as  the 
active  agitators  for  this  radical  revolution  in  the  very  funda- 
mental elements  of  government,  have  resorted  to  every  known 
means  to  secure  their  ends,  I  cannot  but  feel,  that,  however  the 
other  women  may  shrink  from  the  publicity,  it  is  their  bounden 
duty  by  influence,  by  argument,  by  petition,  to  "fight  fire  with 
fire" ;  to  see  to  it  that,  in  the  approaching  elections  for  the 
senate  and  assembly  of  the  state  of  New  York,  men  shall  be 
chosen  who  will  defend  them  from  this  wrong;  and  when  the 
elections  are  completed,  to  let  it  be  known  and  felt  in  Albgny 
that  what  some  women  claim  as  a  political  right,  they  consider 
a  personal  grievance  and  a  public  harm. 

North  American  Review.  190:   158-69.  August,   1909. 

Impediments  to  Woman  Suffrage.     Mrs.  Gilbert  E.  Jones. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  we  are  indulging  in  a  twentieth- 
century  "feminist"  movement.  It  has  been  tried  in  the  past 
and  history  repeats  itself.    Women  have  made  themselves  felt  in 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  273 

the  destiny  of  nations  before  now,  and  it  will  be  interesting  and 
instructive  to  see  if  the  women's  political  efforts  of  to-day  will 
be  effectual  and  whether  the  results  will  be  permanent. 

The  plea  of  the  suffragists  is  for  the  equality  of  the  sexes. 
They  assume,  as  a  rule,  that  women  have  been  browbeaten  and 
downtrodden;  that  they  are  now  awakening;  and  if  we  are  will- 
ing to  admit  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  that  they  should  stand  on 
an  equal  footing  in  the  pursuit  of  industry  and  in  the  control  of 
the  government  which  they  must  obey.  The  anti-suffragists 
grant  the  equality  of  the  sexes.  Men  are  no  better  than  women, 
and  science  assures  us  that  they  are  no  more  intelligent.  But 
the  ''Anti"  insists  that  the  difference  between  the  sexes  shall  not 
be  ignored.  Consequently,  all  suffrage  arguments  may  be  reduced 
to  the  proposition  of  ''equality'*;  all  anti-suffrage  arguments  to 
that  of  ''differentiation." 

The  "woman-suft'rage"  agitation  has  been  in  active  opera- 
tion since  1848.  In  these  sixty  years  many  more  complex  issues 
have  been  before  the  public  and  have  been  more  generally  and 
keenly  felt.  Slavery  has  been  abolished,  the  Spanish  war  has 
been  fought,  the  silver  problem  has  been  settled,  but  we  still 
have  the  wcman-suffrage  question  with  us,  after  sixty  years 
of  dispute  from  Massachusetts  to  California.  Of  late  the  efforts 
of  the  suffragists  have  been  more  pronounced,  but  their  failures 
have  increased  proportionately.  In  the  last  twelve  years  the 
legislatures  of  the  various  states  have  turned  down  suffrage  pro- 
posals on  an  average  of  once  in  every  twenty-seven  days.  Why 
is  it  that  the  American  public  cannot  be  aroused?  Such  a  simple 
issue,  such  simple  arguments  should  have  caught  the  popular 
imagination  long  ago.  Public  opinion  has  been  at  white-heat 
many  times  in  this  interval.  Take  the  Civil  War,  for  instance: 
the  nation  was  determined  to  give  the  negro  political  equality ; 
it  was  willing  to  go  through  a  long  and  bloody  war,  and  to 
give  the  lives  of  500,000  men  to  have  it  done.  The  suffragists 
have  been  telling  us,  ever  since  the  days  of  Lincoln,  that  we  are 
denying  our  mothers,  sisters,  wives  and  daughters  a  privilege 
to  which  they  have  as  much  right  as  the  negro.  Why  is  it  that 
they  have  not  set  the  country  aflame,  from  one  end  to  the  other, 
with  this  argument?  If  they  are  right  the  men  of  this  country 
are  not  only  unfair,  but  tyrannical,  and  public  opinion,  on  which 


274  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

our  government  depends,  has  been  countenancing  manifest  in- 
justice. But  even  if  they  are  wrong,  if  women  have  not  the 
same  right  to  poHtical  equality  that  all  men  have,  why  Have 
they  not  succeeded?  One  would  suppose  the  claims  of  the 
sufifragist  stirring  enough  to  rouse  the  most  indifferent,  so  what 
have  really  been  the  impediments? 

The  thorough  reform  in  the  laws  regarding  women  is  unques- 
tionably one  impediment ;  the  great  respect  which  the  American 
man  has  for  the  American  woman  is  another.  In  no  other  coun- 
try and  in  no  other  time  has  woman  been  held  in  such  high 
estimation  as  she  is  in  the  United  States  of  America  to-day.  She 
has  never  before  had  such  complete  educational  and  industrial 
opportunities  offered  her.  In  social,  civic,  philanthropic  centres 
she  is  a  leader  and  a  power.  More  women  have  their  individual 
bank  accounts  here  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  Woman 
is  granted  freedom  of  religious  expression,  freedom  of  speech 
and  pen,  freedom  from  a  too  conservative  home  life  and  parental 
dependence.  Complete  emancipation  is  hers,  if  she  chooses  to 
find  it — from  a  ''preacher  in  the  pulpit"  to  a  "full-fledged  black- 
smith"— from  "motherhood"  to  female  "bachelorhood."  The 
American  woman  of  to-day,  the  average  woman,  is  further  in 
advance  of  the  average  woman  of  other  countries  than  is  any 
other  class  of  our  population,  and  all  this  without  the  ballot. 
So  where  is  the  practical  injustice  in  not  granting  women  the 
vote? 

It  is  by  studying  the  fundamental  principles  of  our  govern- 
ment that  women  can  find  one  certain  reason  why  they  have  been 
refused  the  ballot  after  their  sixty  years'  pleading.  The  framers 
of  our  state  constitutions  saw  the  wisdom  of  naming  "men" 
only  as  voters.  The  government's  right  to  restrict  the  citizen 
and  demand  certain  qualifications  has  a  simple  but  very  direct 
meaning.  Instinct  and  tradition  have  made  men  the  protectors 
of  women.  This  is  a  natural  law.  Our  Constitution  is  basically, 
fundamentally  and  structurally  framed  for  safety  and  stability, 
"as  the  safety  of  the  whole  is  the  interest  of  the  whole."  What 
was  needed  in  our  earlier  days  to  create  confidence  in  our  form 
of  government  is  quite  as  important  to-day.  Foreign  forces,  the 
foreigners  within  our  borders  and  our  own  native  interests  must 
be  considered  and  cannot  be  provided  for  without  a  stable  gov- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  275 

ernment.  Our  federal  and  state  constitutions  amply  fulfil  this 
need,  and  it  is  significant  to  find  the  word  "male"  inserted,  in 
designating  who  shall  be  the  voters,  for  ''men"  are  the  only- 
citizens  who  can  preserve  the  safety  of  our  country,  our  laws 
and  our  women.  Uncle  Sam  insists  on  a  full-grown  man,  of  the 
age  of  twenty-one  years,  as  the  voter,  with  qualifications  as  to 
•age,  place  of  residence,  etc.  Women  are  certainly  within  the 
age  and  residence  qualifications,  and  they  offer  morality,  intel- 
ligence and  tax-paying  qualifications  besides.  But  the  govern- 
ment does  not  impose  these  qualifications  on  men.  Men  do  not 
vote  because  they  are  moral,  intelligent  or  taxpayers  only. 

Then  what  does  the  government  require  of  man  that  the 
woman  cannot  give?  The  government  asks  the  man  to  accept 
the  responsibility  of  maintaining  it,  of  preserving  its  very  exist- 
ence. It  recognizes  that  the  man  forms  the  only  basis  on  which 
any  government  can  rest.  A  government  owes  its  existence  not 
to  the  obedience  of  its  subjects,  not  to  the  taxes  it  receives,  but 
to  the  fact  that  the  men  of  the  state  will  come  to  the  support  of 
the  state.  Even  a  despotism  recognizes  this  f'^ct  in  a  dim  sort  of 
way.  But  in  a  democracy  this  is,  and  must  be,  the  key-note  of 
the  whole  structure.  The  man  is  the  rock  on  which  the  gov- 
ernment is  built,  whatever  its  form.  The  woman  never  was  and 
never  will  be.  Giving  the  man  the  vote  is  nothing  more  than  a 
recognition  of  this  fact.  Giving  women  the  vote  would  be  to 
deny  it.  For  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  women  in  asking 
for  the  vote  are  asking  not  only  for  a  voice  in  such  public  af- 
fairs as  interest  them  especially,  but  for  complete  sovereign 
power.  But  this  is  a  contradiction,  for  if  women  vote  men  must 
protect  that  vote,  and,  to  illustrate  this  truth,  a  quotation  from 
the  "New  York  Times,"  April  7th,  1909,  will  suffice : 

"If  women  had  the  franchise,  and  then  all  the  women  should 
vote  on  one  side  and  the  men  on  the  other,  and  the  women  should 
cast  the  bigg-est  vote,  would  the  men,  with  their  greater  physical 
force,  go  to  arms'?  And  would  the  women  have  to  give  in?  That 
was  the  question  which  Mrs.  Florence  Masterton  proposed  at  the 
meeting  of  the  'William  Lloyd  Garrison  Equal  Franchise  League' 
at  its  annual  meeting  at  the  home  of  Miss  Florence  Guernsey, 
No.  2  West  Eighty-sixth  Street.  'Not  at  all,'  said  one  of  the 
women  present;  'majority  rules  in  this  country,  and  if  the  women 
were  in  the  majority  then  the  government  would  come  to  their 
assistance  and  force  the  acceptance  of  their  vote.'  " 

How  could  the  government  force  the  acceptance  of  their  vote? 
By  calling  on  the  able-bodied  men  to  enforce  it.    That  is  the  real 


276  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

meaning  of  government,  and  it  therefore  lies  actually  only  in 
the  hands  of  men,  and  our  theory  of  government  should  conform 
to  fundamental  facts.  To  guarantee  safety  and  stability  to  our 
Union  government  cannot  indulge  in  sentiment  or  emotional 
methods,  as  it  is  a  practical  business  organization.  To  give 
women  the  ballot  would  be  but  adding  'Voice  and  expression"  to 
our  already  difficult  settUng  of  elections.  There  are  voices 
enough  now.  The  question  is,  Should  we  not  have  more  re- 
striction rather  than  add  to  our  mixed  voting  population? 

Government  has  again  to  be  considered.  "Votes  for  women"^ 
would  also  mean  that  women  would  hold  office,  executive,  legis- 
lative and  judicial.  Women  could  be  elected  to  sit  in  our  legis- 
latures, become  governors,  mayors,  judges  and  jurors.  Certainly 
the  nation's  legal  and  judicial  authority  will  not  be  strengthened 
by  placing  women  in  these  official  positions,  as  women  are  not 
fitted  for  such  tasks.  Government  can  be  likened  to  a  bank  and 
full-grown  men  are  Uncle  Sam's  capital.  If  a  weaker  being  is  to 
be  intrusted  with  the  guidance  of  the  nation  it  will  have  the 
effect  of  making  silver,  instead  of  gold,  our  money  standard. 
Both  are  excellent  in  their  way,  but  one  cannot  wholly  replace 
the  other.  So  in  the  last  analysis  men  must  be  the  basic  power 
and  the  leaders  to  guarantee  safety  to  our  country,  and  women 
cannot  relieve  them  of  that  burden. 

As  to  the  service  to  the  state,  given  by  women  in  bearing 
sons,  the  men  work  not  only  to  support  those  sons,  but  support 
also  their  mothers  and  wives,  and  that  far  beyond  the  child- 
bearing  age.  Motherhood  is  unquestionably  the  greatest  service 
to  the  human  race  that  can  possibly  be  conceived  of.  The  state 
benefits  by  it.  But  motherhood  is  neither  a  state  duty  nor  a 
state  service.  The  state  gives  the  franchise  when  it  demands 
service;  motherhood  it  can  neither  demand  nor  deny.  Mother- 
hood will  still  be  motherhood  whether  the  state  is  a  democracy 
or  a  despotism,  and  motherhood  would  still  continue  were  all 
government  abolished.  The  state  depends  on  it,  as  it  depends 
on  the  rain  that  falls  and  the  sun  that  shines  in  the  heavens. 
But  it  cannot  invoke  a  natural  law  which  must  operate  as  long 
as  the  human  race  survives,  as  an  obligation  under  which  the 
state  shall  rest,  and  therefore  part  with  its  privileges. 

That   tax-paying   women    should    vote    seems    a    claim    easily 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  277 

granted  if  it  could  prove  an  advantage  to  the  woman  or  the 
state ;  but  it  cannot,  and  an  infinite  amount  of  idle  sentiment 
is  displayed  over  this  particular  subject.  Universal  manhood 
suffrage  is  the  crowning  result  in  the  long  evolution  of  govern- 
ment. It  did  not  exist  in  our  earlier  history.  Voters  were  de- 
fined as.  "Freeholders"  who  had  some  moneyed  or  property 
qualification.  From  1619  there  was  a  gradual  and  determined 
struggle  to  keep  property-owners  and  tax-paying  citizens  as  the 
only  voters  or  persons  having  a  voice  in  elections.  The  con- 
stitutional provisions  regulating  suffrage  were  in  constant  dis- 
pute, and  because  of  these  difficulties  fraud  and  deception  were 
prevalent.  It  was  easy  to  contract* for  small  pieces  of  property, 
^'freehold,"  before  election  and  give  them  up  afterwards  with 
no  exchange  of  money.  Taxation  and  representation  of  this 
kind  had  its  many  variations  and  "freeholds"  became  merely 
nominal.  Reforms  were  needed  and  enacted  and  constitutional 
amendments  were  not  infrequent.  Statesmen,  lawyers,  citizens 
and  the  wise  men  from  the  North,  South,  East  and  West  have 
been  consulted  and  have  conscientiously  discussed  this  question 
of  who  should  vote,  with  the  result  that  universal  manhood 
suffrage  has  been  generally  adopted.  Invariably  they  have 
worked  away  from  qualified  suffrage  and  no  citizen  in  the  United 
States  votes  because  he  pays  taxes.  Tax-payers  are  represented 
in  every  state  in  the  Union.  Legislators  are  responsible  to  tax- 
payers, but  there  is  no  reason  or  precedent  for  the  proposition 
that  legislators  must  be  responsible  to  every  taxpayer  in  order 
to  avoid  taxation  without  representation  and  it  cannot  be  turned 
into  an  individual  right.  Woman  suffragists  insist  that  women 
should  vote  because  they  pay  taxes,  yet  the  history  of  suffrage 
proves  that  this  basis  for  the  suffrage  is  unwise  and  inexpedient  and 
does  not  apply  in  the  case  of  the  male  citizen.  If  tax-paying 
womicn  alone  are  granted  the  privilege  of  the  ballot  on  this  plea, 
will  it  not  create  distinct  class  legislation  for  rich  women?  In 
former  times  aristocracy  prevailed  and  many  voted  in  propor- 
tion to  the  amount  of  property  they  held.  The  rich  man  had 
more  voting  power  than  the  poor  man.  This  was  undemocratic, 
and  gradually  all  moneyed  and  aristocratic  qualifications  dis- 
appeared. 

The    suffragists    frequently    assert    that    all    women    are    tax- 


278"  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

payers  because  of  our  system  of  indirect  taxation.  In  one  sense 
this  is  true;  yet  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  vast  body  of 
women,  including  the  wage-earning  women  in  this  country,  are 
not  economically  /^dependent,  as  they  are  mainly  supported  by 
the  men  of  their  families.  No  woman  who  is  economically  c?(?- 
pendent  on  her  husband  or  father  or  whoever  may  be  supporting 
her  may  properly  be  said  to  pay  taxes.  The  man  supporting  her 
pays  them  for  her  or  she  pays  them  with  his  money.  So  far 
as  this  argument  is  concerned  she  should  therefore  be  eliminated, 
and  the  question  should  be  confined  to  the  woman  who  pays 
direct  taxes.  If  tax-paying  women  are  to  vote  because  they  pay 
taxes,  may  not  corporations,  minors,  non-residents  and  unnat- 
uralized citizens  ask  for  the  same  privilege?  If  it  is  just  to  one 
it  must  be  just  to  all.  Corporations  are  persons  in  the  eyes  of 
the  law  and  can  be  indicted,  tried  and  convicted  under  the  crim- 
inal laws.  Their  stockholders  are  men  and  women  and  they 
pay  enormous  taxes.  Minors'  estates  are  taxed,  and  neither  they 
nor  their  guardians,  as  guardians,  have  a  voice  in  elections 
representing  them.  Unnaturalized  citizens  often  pay  taxes  a  life- 
time and  can  never  vote.  A  non-resident  can  only  vote  in  the 
state  of  his  residence,  and  yet  he  may  pay  taxes  in  several 
others.  There  is  but  one  rule  for  all  of  these  instances,  only  one 
reason  why  they  have  no  vote.  The  governnient  cannot  exact 
their  allegiance;  they  cannot  be  called  on  to  support  the  state 
they  do  not  reside  in  or  of  which  they  are  not  citizens.  Women 
who  demand,  the  ballot  do  not  take  this  into  consideration;  they 
ignore  these  facts. 

Women  suffragists  say  they  are  "American  citizens"  and  have 
the  "right"  to  vote  as  such.  This  assertion  must  be  corrected, 
as  it  does  not  apply  even  to  the  "male"  citizen.  Citizenship  is 
a  granted  right,  not  a  natural  one,  derived  and  regulated  by  each 
country  or  state,  according  to  its  ideas  of  government.  Mrs. 
Rossiter  Johnson  states  in  her  book,  "Women  and  the  Republic" 
(the  best  authority  on  Anti-Suffrage),  "Where  a  majority  deemed 
the  preservation  of  the .  state  depended  upon  disfranchising  a 
number  of  voters  they  would  be  disfranchised,  although  they 
remained  citizens."  The  fallacy  of  the  suffragist  that  a  voter 
and  a  citizen  should  be  one  and  the  same  must  be  disclosed  with 
emphasis,  as  in  this  they  mislead  many  women.     Chief- Justice 


.  WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  279 

Waite,  of  the  United  States  Supeme  Court,  decided  that  citizen- 
ship carried  with  it  no  voting  power  or  right.  The  same  de- 
cision has  been  handed  down  by  many  courts  in  disposing  of 
test  cases.  A  resident  of  the  District  of  Columbia  has  all  the 
privileges  of  citizenship ;  but  he  cannot  vote,  as  that  is  a  state 
right,  and  the  District  of  Columbia  is  not  a  state.  Citizenship 
does  not  entitle  a  man  or  woman  to  vote,  so  the  injustice  to 
woman  cannot  be  found  here. 

The  four  woman-suffrage  states,  Utah,  Wyoming,  Idaho 
and  Colorado,  do  not  give  an  interesting  object-lesson  of  how 
suffrage  can  be  effective.  Suffragists  have  "suffrage"  testimony 
that  is  encouraging  and  convincing  to  the  many  credulous  unin- 
vestigating  converts.  Anti-suffragists  have  ample  evidence  to 
prove  woman  suffrage  in  these  States  a  dismal  failure.  The 
late  General  Palmer  pronounced  woman  suffrage  a  "failure" 
in  Colorado  just  before  his  death;  yet  no  one  in  that  state  had 
the  welfare  of  its  citizens  so  dear  at  heart  as  that  magnificent  old 
General. 

The  much-discussed  Judge  Lindsey,  of  the  Juvenile  Courts  of 
Denver,  expressed  his  views  in  an  interview  presented  in  the 
**New  York  Times,"  February  7th,  1909: 

"I  can't  say  that  the  women's  vote  has  helped  things  much 
in  Colorado.  Both  the  political  parties  of  the  state  have  been, 
and  still  are,  under  absolute  domination  of  the  public-service 
corporations.  Now  this  is  a  point  that  I  want  you  to  maJce  clear: 
I  have  found  that  women  in  politics  are  no  better  and  no  worse 
than  men.  Don't  forget  that  when  a  question  narrows  itself 
down  to  the-  bread-line,  to  selfish  interests,  both  sexes  follow  the 
same  line  of  action — they  look  out  for  No.  1. .  If  a  woman  wants 
to  get  a  political  job  she  will  stand  for  iniquity;  if  s-he's  afraid 
of  losing  her  job   she'll   do  the  same  thing." 

The  thoroughly  unprejudiced  opifiion  is  that  "woman  suf- 
frage" has  proved  to  be  utterly  "futile."  Not  bad  arid  not  good, 
or  rather  not  worth  while.  It  has  not  brought  about  one  single 
benefit  that  cannot  be  found' in  other  states  where  women  do  not 
vote.  Certainly  no  state  can  boast  of  good,  safe  political  condi- 
tions when  it  must  call  out  2i  stalwart,  forcible  reserve  oi  "wom- 
en and  the  kids"  to  elect  on^?  good  man  to  office.  New  York 
state  had  a  greater  victory  in  electing  Charles  Evans  Hughes  as 
governor,  and  the  men  of  the  state  alone  were  needed  to  accom- 
plish the  fact. 

In  the   states   where   woman   suffrage   is   in   practice   divorce 


28o  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

laws  are  singularly  lax,  and  men  and  women  from  other  states 
flock  there  to  take  advantage  of  them.  In  strong  contrast  to  this 
state  of  affairs,  it  is  well  known  that  the  anti-suffragists  demand 
universal  divorce  laws.  Equality  that  women  ask  for  and  further 
emancipation  of  women  will  lessen  the  chances  of  marriage,  and 
divorce  will  soon  be  created  at  will.  Nearly  a  million  divorces 
have  been  granted  in  the  United  States,  during  the  last  twenty 
years;  that  is  i,ooo  every  week  or  an  average  of.  140  every  day, 
yet  women  ask  for  more  liberty. 

The  tendency  to  ally  with  Socialism,  the  emptiness  of  the 
promises  to  the  wage-earner,  the  groundlessness  of  the  cry, 
^Taxation  without  representation  is,  tyranny,"  the  fundamental 
truth  that  government  is  the  work  of  the  man  because  it  depends 
on  him  alone  for  its  very  existence,  the  failure  of  suffrage  in  the 
four  suffrage  states ;  these  are  some  of  the  impediments  in  the 
way  of  the  woman  suffragists.  But  the  most  important  of  all 
lies  in  the  long-continued  indifference  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
people.  It  cannot  be  said  that  they  do  not  understand  the  move- 
ment or  that* they  have  not  heard  of  it;  nor  can  it  be  said  that 
there  is  nothing  in  it  to  appeal  to  the  popular  imagination.  On 
the  contrary,  few  propositions,  not  even  Socialism,  afford  the 
stump-speaker  such  excellent  material  for  arousing  his  hearers. 
It  can  hardly  be  believed  that  this  indifference  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  public  has  found  the  fallacies  in  the  suffrage  arguments. 
The  suffragists  believe  that  this  negative  attitude  is  due  to  long- 
standing prejudice.  The  last  sixty  years  have  seen  every  im- 
portant legal  restriction  on  women  removed  in  New  York  state 
and  in  many  of  the  other  states  of  the  Union.  The  same  legis- 
lators at  Albany  that  have  removed  property-holding  restrictions 
from  married  women  granted  them  full  contractual  and  conjugal 
rights;  in  short,  placed  them  on  a  legal  equality  with  men,  have 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  annual  demand  for  political  equality. 
The  public  opinion  of  the  state  has  looked  with  approval  on 
these  legislative  reforms  and  has  sanctioned  woman's  demand  for 
equal  opportunity  in  every  detail  of  life.  Yet  this  same  public 
opinion  stands  neutral.  This  is  not  prejudice.  The  most  striking 
arguments  fail  to  arouse  and  we  have  simply  a  complete  lack  of 
interest,  but  next  to  no  opposition.  The  active  anti-suffragists 
are   a  mere  handful   and  could   not   for   one   moment   withstand 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  281 

the  issue  if  public  opinion  were  really  back  of  it.  Is  it  not  absurd 
to  say  that  the  movement  has  been  downed  for  sixty  years  by 
prejudice  against  women  when  everything  else  they  could  pos- 
sibly ask  for  has  been  granted  them  unreservedly,  and  when  all 
the  efforts  of  the  suffragists  during  that  time  have  not  even 
aroused  resistance  except  spasmodically? 

No  one  can  deny  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  but  there  is  still 
a  chasm  between  them,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  heights  on 
either  side  are  equally  majestic.  This  chasm  has  never  been  ade- 
quately explored,  but  it  will  not  for  that  reason  do  to  tell  us  that 
it  does  not  exist.  It  is  by  instinct  rather  than  by  reason  that  the 
great  American  public  has  remained  passive  on  this  subject.  The 
American  man  feels  strongly  that  he  is,  and  must  always  be,  the 
protector  of  his  ''women  folk."  He  does  not  ask  why;  he  knows 
that  it  is  true.  He  also  feels  dimly  that  the  demand  of  women 
for  the  ballot  ''to  protect  themselves"  is  inconsistent  with  his 
protectorate.  He  is  willing  to  give  women  everything  they  ask. 
But  if  he  is  going  to  protect  women  he  will  not  give  them  the 
"ruling  power."  He  cannot,  therefore,  be  aroused  to  enthusiasm 
on  the  subject.  The  women  feel  this  as  strongly  as  the  men  and 
that  is  why  they  cannot  be  roused.  That  this  attitude  is  unrea- 
soning must  be  to  a  great  extent  admitted;  that  it  is  prejudiced 
must  be  strongly  denied.  It  is  an  unstudied  acknowledgment  of 
the  distinction  between  the  sexes.  If  it  is  to  be  removed,  then 
there  will  go  wiih  it  much  of  the  best  that  there  is  in  men  and 
women.  When  men  come  to  feel  that  they  are  no  longer  the 
protectors  of  their  wives,  daughters,  mothers  and  sisters,  and 
when  the  women  look  to  the  ballot  for  their  protection  rather 
than  to  their  husbands,  sons  and  fathers,  then  woman  suffrage 
will  be  a  necessity  and  public  opinion  will  be  clamoring  for  it. 
But  till  this  is  true  the  subject  will  be  one  to  which  the  American 
people  will  re^main  indifferent. 

Quarterly  Review.  210:  276-304.  January,  1909. 

Woman  Suffrage.     Albert  Venn  Dicey. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  reasons  which  tell  directly  against  the 
admission  of  women  to  the  parliamentary  franchise. 

The  first  is  that  woman  suffrage  must  lead  to  adult  suffrage, 


282,  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

and  will  increase  all  the  admitted  defects  of  so-called  universal 
or,  in  strictness,  manhood  suffrage.  Every  reason  and  every 
sentiment  which  supports  the  cry  of  Votes  for  women'  tells  in 
favour  of  adult  suffrage.  It  would  be  no  easy  task  to  give,  even 
in  name,  political  equality  to  women  under  our  present  electoral 
system.  But  this  feat  could  be  performed  with  the  greatest  ease 
under  a  scheme  of  adult  suffrage  which  would  give  a  vote  to 
every  man  or  w^oman  who  had  attained  the  age  of  twenty-one 
years.  Woman  suffrage,  then,  independently  of  the  new  electors 
being  women,  must  add  to  the  defects  of  manhood  suffrage.  A 
huge  constituency  is  just  because  of  its  size,  a  bad  electoral  body. 
As  the  number  of  electors  is  increased,  the  powder  and  the  re- 
sponsibility of  each  man  are  diminished.  Authority  passes  into 
the  hands  of  persons  who  posses  neither  the  independence  due 
to  the  possession  of  property  nor  the  intelligence  due  to  educa- 
tion. 

Our  electorate  now  consists  of  some  7,000,000  men.  Adult 
suffrage  would. .create  an  electorate  of,  say  roundly,  from  at  least 
20,000,000  to  24,000,000  individuals,  of  whom  considerably  over 
io,coo,ooo  would  be  women.  This  mere  increase  in  numbers  is 
no  slight  evil.  That  more  than  half  the  new  electors  should  be 
absolutely  devoid  of  political  training  and  traditions  creates  of 
itself  a  national  peril;  but  common  sense  forbids  any  fair  rea- 
soner  to  stop  at  this  point.  This  uneducated  majority  of  the 
electorate  would  be  women.  The  very  advocates  of  woman  suf- 
frage make  it  part  of  their  case  that  the  civic  virtues  of  women 
have  never  as  yet  been  fully  developed.  Assuredly  the  most 
ordinary  prudence  warns  us  against  admitting  to  a  full  share 
of  sovereignty  persons  who  have  lacked  all  experience  of  its 
exercise. 

'  Grant,  for  the  sake  of  argument — ^though  the  concession  is 
not  justified  by  our  knowledge  of  human  nature — that  posses- 
sion of  power  invariably  teaches  its  possessors  to  use  it  with 
justice.  Still  it  remains  the  height  of  folly  to  entrust  the  guid- 
ance of  the  State,  at  a  time  when  the  country  is  surrounded 
by  perils  of  all  kinds,  to  unskilled  apprentices  who  have  no  ex- 
perience in  piloting  the  commonwealth  through  pressing  dangers. 
The  most  sagacious  advocates  of  women's  rights  do  not  deny 
that  each  sex  exhibits  virtues  which  are  found  only  in  a  less 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  283 

degree,  or,  it  may  be,  not  at  all,  in  the  other.  We  hear  much 
of  the  keenness  of  women's  personal  sympathies,  of  their  capa- 
city for  passionate  and  often  generous  emotion ;  we  are  told 
that  either  nature  or  training,  or  both  in  combination,  may  lead 
women  to  see  more  readily  than  men  the  minute  details  on 
which  depends  the  transaction  of  business.  Yet  it  would  not  be 
unfair  to  say  that,  while  women  often  perceive  more  readily 
than  men  the  actual  facts  before  them,  they  have  a  less  firm 
grasp  on  principles ;  that  a  woman,  in  short,  compared  with  a 
man  of  equal  ability,  may  have  a  better  eye  for  the  circumstances 
around  her,  but  has  less  of  foresight.  She  has  assuredly  also 
less  of  tenacity. 

From  differences,  upon  some  of  which,  in  whatever  form  they 
ought  to  be  expressed,  no  man  has  insisted  more  strongly  than 
Mill,  it  follows  that  the  participation  of  women  in  sovereign 
power  must  introduce  into  English  politics  a  new  and  incalcul- 
able element  which  will  not  work  wholly  for  good.  An  English 
democracy,  in  common  wath  all  democracies,  is  too  emotional. 
The  strong  point  of  popular  government  is  assuredly  neither 
foresight  nor  firmness  of  purpose.  Now  every  student  of  Brit- 
ish history  can  see  that  occasionally  the  statesmanlike  foresight, 
and  still  more  certainly  the  intense  tenacity  or  obstinacy  of  pur- 
pose, which  have  marked  the  British  aristocracy  and  the  British 
middle  classes,  have  been  the  salvation  of  the  country.  These 
qualities  defended  the  independence  of  England  against  the  des- 
potism of  Louis  XIV,  and,  in  a  later  age,  against  the  attacks,  first 
of  revolutionary  Jacobinism,  and  next  of  Napoleonic  Imper- 
ialism. No  one  as  yet  knows  whether  our  democracy  can  ex- 
hibit the  unconquerable  tenacity  of  purpose  which  once  and 
again  has  saved  England  from  subjection  to  foreign  power.  Who 
can  contemplate  without  dread  a  state  of  things  under  which 
democratic  passion,  intensified  by  feminine  emotion,  may  deprive 
the  country  both  of  the  calmness  which  foresees  and  the  reso- 
lution which  repels  the  onslaught  of  foreign  enemies?  There 
is,  we  venture  to  say,  no  man,  and  no  woman  either,  who  at 
moments  of  calm  reflection  can  believe  that,  at  a  time  of  threat- 
ened invasion,  the  safety  of  the  country  would  be  increased  by 
the  possibility  that  British  policy  might  be  determined  by  the 
votes  and  the  influence  of  the  fighting  suffragists. 


284  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

A  second  objection  to  the  proposed  sovereignty  of  women 
is  this,  It  has  hitherto  been  in  Great  Britain  a  primary  and  es- 
sential condition  of  the  admission  of  any  body  of  persons  to  a 
share  in  sovereignty  that  the  class  on  whose  behalf  parliamen- 
tary votes  are  demanded  should  be  eager  and  ready  to  take  up 
parliamentary  responsibilities.  In  1832  nobody  doubted  t^  at  the 
middle  classes,  or  in  1867  that  the  artisans,  desired  admission 
to  the  full  powers  of  citizenship.  But  this  primary  condition  of 
constitutional  changes  has  in  the  present  instance  not  been  ful- 
filled. Many  women,  indeed,  desire  votes ;  a  few  women  clam- 
our passionately  for  votes.  But  a  large  number  of  English 
women  protest  against  the  introduction  of  woman  suffrage;  they 
deprecate  the  concession  to  themselves  of  rights  which  they 
regard  as  intolerable  burdens,  and  the  concession  to  other  women 
of  powers  which  they  believe  the  recipients  cannot  exercise 
with  advantage  to  the  country. 

This  protest  must  command  attention ;  it  reveals  an  excep- 
tional state  of  opinion  which  must,  so  long  as  it  exists,  tell 
strongly  against  the  introduction  of  woman,  suffrage  into  Great 
Britain.  The  position  of  these  political  protestants  is  in  no 
way  absurd.     It  is  best  expressed  in  the  words  of  a  woman : 

"The  woman  whose  profound,  though  often  unspoken,  reluc- 
tance to  the  proposed  addition  to  their  duties  and  responsibilities 
I  am  endeavoring  to  interpret,  do  not  regard  the  question  as  main- 
ly referring  to  the  value,  to  the  best  distribution,  of  a  particular 
bit  of  political  machinery;  but  as  involving  that  of  the  right 
and  fair  division  of  labour  between  the  sexes.  We  regard  the 
suffrage  not  as  confsrring  a  necessarily  advantageous  position, 
but  rather  as  the  symbol,  and  to  some  extent  the  instrument,  of 
a  public  participation  in  political  functions;  not  as  a  prize  to  be 
coveted,  but  as  a  token  of  a  task  which  should  not  be  indis- 
criminately imposed — a  task  not  to  be  lightly  undertaken,  or 
discharged  without  encountering  both  toil  and  opposition.  We 
think  that  justice  and  fairness  consist,  not  in  ignoring  actual  dif- 
ferences, but  in  so  adjusting  necessary  burdens  with  due  regard 
to  the  lines  of  irremovable  difference  as  to  secure  the  most  even 
distribution  of  pressure.  W^e  believe  that  the  fact  that  Nature 
has  irrevocably  imposed  certain  burdens  on  our  sex  constitutes 
a  claim,  as  a  matter  of  justice,  that  we  s-hould  be  relieved  from 
some  part  of  those  functions  which  men  are  competent  to  share 
with   us." 

Nor  is  there  the  least  lack  of  public  spirit  in  the  protest  by 
freeborn  Englishwomen  against  subjection  to  a  sovereignty  of 
women  which  they  neither  desire  nor  revere,  and  which  they 
believe  would  be  disastrous  to  the  country.  One  point  is  past 
dispute.     Every  reason  which   supports   the   claim   of   women  to 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  285 

votes  supports  also  the  right  of  women  to  be  consulted  on  tne 
question  whether  they  shall  be  given  votes  or  not.  It  is  im- 
possible to  maintain  that  women  have  a  right  to  determine  every 
matter  which  concerns  the  interest  of  England  or  of  the  British 
Empire,  but  have  no  right  to  be  consulted  whether  it  is  well  for 
England  and  for  women  themselves  that  the  country  should  try 
the  new  experiment  of  woman  suffrage.  No  serious  reasoner  will 
try  to  escape  this  conclusion  by  the  idle  retort  that  a  woman  who 
does  not  desire  a  vote  need  not  use  it.  The  very  essence  of  her 
objection  is  that  a  vote  imposes  upon  her  a  duty  which  may  be 
an  intolerable  burden,  and  subjects  her  to  the  rule  of  a  class, 
namely  women,  which  she  deems  incompetent  to  exercise  sov- 
ereign power. 

A  third  objection  is  that  the  basis  of  all  government  is  force, 
which  means  in  the  last  resort  physical  strength.  Now  predom- 
inant force  lies  in  the  hands  of  men;  and  these  facts,  whether 
we  like  them  or  not,  tell  in  more  ways  than  people  often  real- 
ize against  giving  a  share  in  sovereignty  to  English  women. 
The  matter  well  deserves  consideration. 

There  is,  in  the  first  place,  a  grave  danger  that  the  nom- 
inally sovereign  body  may  not  be  in  reality  able  to  enforce  the 
law  of  the  land.  In  this  country  the  legal  or  constitutional  sov- 
ereign is  Parliament,  i.  e.  the  King,  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
the  House  of  Commons,  acting  together;  but  the  'political  sov- 
ereign' is  the  electorate,  which,  being  wide  enough  to  share  and 
represent  the  feelings  of  the  mass  of  the  people,  does  in  general 
obtain  obedience  to  the  laws  which  it  approves.  But  the  reason 
why  laws  made  with  the  assent  or  acquiescence  of  the  electorate 
are  obeyed,  is  that  the  electors  constitute  a  power  to  which  no 
single  citizen  and  no  class  of  citizens  can  offer  permanent  re- 
sistance. 

That  the  employment  of  physical  force  is  the  basis  of  law 
and  of  sovereignty,  any  one  may  assure  himself  by  observing 
the  way  in  which  law  loses  its  authority  whenever  the  support 
of  the  force  whence  law  derives  its  power  is  withdrawn.  Why 
has  the  law  of  the  land  little  better  than  a  nominal  existence  in 
some  parts  of  Ireland?  The  answer  is  that,  for  reasons  of 
party  convenience,  the  British  government  will  not  in  Ireland 
use   the   power   placed   in   its   hands   by   Parliament   for   the   en- 


^86  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

forcement  of  the  law.  Let  a  fighting  suffragist  in  her  calmer 
moments  ask  herself  why  it  is  that  her  petulance  or  her  cunning 
is  allowed  occasionally  to  interrupt  the  sittings  of  the  House 
of  Commons  and  lower  the  dignity  of  Parliament?  The  an- 
swer assuredly  is  that  habitual  consideration  for  the  weakness 
of  women  makes  Englishmen  for  the  moment  unwilling  to  use 
the  force  needed  for  the  suppression  of  misbehaviour,  which 
it  may  any  day  be  necessary  to  punish  with  the  severity  due  to 
serious  crime. 

Meanwhile  law  is  enfeebled  unless  supported  by  adequate 
force.  Now  the  sovereignty  of  Parliament,  or  in  other  words 
the  power  of  the  electorate,  might  easily  be  imperilled  if  the 
majority  of  the  electors  were  a  class  which,  though  more  nu- 
merous, was  weaker  than  a  minority  of  the  nation.  But  this 
is  exactly  the  state  of  things  which  might  arise  under  a  system 
of  adult  suffrage  embracing  not  only  men  but  women.  Suppose 
an  Act  of  Parliament  passed  which  was  opposed  to  the  wishes 
of  the  decided  majority  of  male  electors,  but  carried  practically 
by  the  votes  of  women.  In  such  a  case  the  ominous  result  would 
ensue  that,  whilst  the  political  sovereign,  that  is  the  majority  of 
electors,  supported  the  law,  the  body  possessed  of  predominant 
strength  would  be  strongly  opposed  to  the  law.  Rarely,  indeed, 
could  it  happen  that  anything  like  the  whole  body  of  female 
electors  would  be  opposed  to  anything  like  the  whole  body  of 
male  electors.  It  is  not  necessary  for  our  argument  to  imagine 
so  portentous  a  state  of  affairs.  But  it  is  certainly  possible  un- 
der a  system  of  adult  suffrage,  and  in  a  country  where,  as  in 
England,  women  constitute  the  greater  part  of  the  population, 
that  a  body  composed  of  a  large  majority  of  female  electors 
acting  together  with  a  minority  of  male  electors,  might  force 
upon  the  country  a  law  or  a  policy  opposed  to  the  deliberate  will 
and  judgment  of  the  majority  of  Englishmen.  Is  it  certain  that 
in  such  circumstances  Englishmen  would  obey  and  enforce  a  law 
that  punished  as  a  crime  conduct  which  they  in  general  held 
ought  to  be  treated  as  an  offence,  not  against  the  law,  but  against 
morality?  Can  we,  again,  feel  assured  that  Englishmen  might 
not  forbid  the  making  of  an  ignominious  peace,  even  though 
the  majority  of  the  electorate,  consisting  for  the  most  part  of 
womenj   held    the    horrors    of    war    must   be    terminated    at    all 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  28r 

costs  by  a  treaty  which,  in  the  eyes  of  most  Englishmen,  sac- 
rificed the  dignity  and  imperilled  the  independence  of  the  coun- 
try? 

Add  to  this  a  consideration  to  which  little  attention  has  been! 
paid.  The  army,  the  police,  governors  of  gaols,  every  person, 
in  short,  by  whom  the  coercive  power  of  the  state  is  directly 
exercised,  must,  under  any  constitution  whatever,  be  men.  When- 
ever, therefore,  a  large  majority  of  male  electors  is  outvoted  by 
a  majority  constituted  mainly  of  women,  the  minority  will  com-" 
mand  the  sympathy  of  the  officials  by  whose  hands  the  state 
exercises  its  power.  Woman  suffrage,  therefore,  in  common 
with  every  system  which  separates  nominal  sovereignty  from  the 
possession  of  irresistible  power,  involves  the  risk  that  the  con- 
stitutional sovereign  of  the  country  may  be  rendered  powerless, 
by  a  class,  in  this  instance  the  majority  of  the  male  electors, 
possessed  of  predominant  physical   force. 

Look  at  the  connexion  between  the  force  and  government 
from  another  point  of  view.  It  is  an  open  secret  of  sound  consti- 
tutionalism that  any  polity  which  is  to  stand  the  trials  to  which 
every  great  institution  devised  by  man  is  exposed,  must  give 
effect,  under  whatever  form,  to  the  will  of  the  class  possessed 
of  paramount  and  enduring  power.  In  this  sense,  and  in  this. 
sense  only,  statesmen  who  most  honour  law  and  justice  must 
desire  that  might  and  right,  law  and  strength,  should  harmonize 
with  and  support  each  other.  The  many  failures  and  the  rare 
successes  of  constitution-makers  equally  attest  the  importance  of 
this  principle.  Why  was  it  that  the  democrats  and  Puritans  who 
planned  institutions  so  ingenious  as  the  constitution  of  1653  could 
create  no  permanent  form  of  popular  government?  A  partial 
answer  to  a  complicated  question  is  surely  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  the  premature  democratic  institutions  of  Puritanism,  and 
even  the  Protectorate  with  its  approach  towards  the  ancient  king- 
ship, did  not  represent  the  strength  of  England.  The  yeomanry, 
on  which  the  republicans  of  the  Commonwealth  relied,  was  al- 
ready a  declining  power.  Why,  on  the  other  hand,  did  the  Revo- 
lution settlement  of  1689,  with  all  its  defects,  stand  substantially 
unchanged  for  some  140  years?  The  answer  is  that  this  work 
of  Whig  statesmanship  on  the  whole  satisfied  the  large  land- 
owners, the  merchants,  the  traders,  who  constituted  the  true 
strength  of  England. 


288  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  experiment,  tried  in  our  own  times 
by  the  American  democracy,  of  conferring  full  political  rights 
on  the  negroes  of  the  South.  There  was  much  to  be  said  in  its 
favour.  In  a  democratic  republic,  men  argued,  no  class  could  ob- 
tain respect  or  secure  its  own  civil  rights  unless  it  had  its  share 
in  political  sovereignty.  This  was  the  conviction  of  most,  though 
not  of  all  abolitionists;  it  was  shared  by  some  of  the  best  and 
wisest  American  statesmen.  In  the  decision  finally  adopted, 
generous  enthusiasm  and  philanthropy  played  a  far  greater  part 
than  partisanship  or  the  shallow  astuteness  of  party  managers. 
The  generous  experiment  has  turned  out  a  dubious  success,  if 
not  a  failure.  The  negro  vote  is  a  sham  and  a  fraud.  Some 
candid  observers  will  assert  that  the  state  of  feeling  between 
the  whites  and  the  blacks  is  worse  than  ever,  though  others  hap- 
pily draw  a  brighter  picture  of  the  condition  of  the  South.  No 
one,  thank  Heaven,  regrets  the  aboliton  of  slavery ;  but  patriotic 
American  citizens,  among  them  may  be  numbered  some  of  the 
most  sagacious  men  of  colour,  hold,  it  would  appear,  the  opinion 
that  the  wiser  course  would  have  been  to  use  the  power  of  the 
rcvunited  Republic,  at  the  end  of  the  War  of  Secession,  for 
securing  to  the  negroes  every  civil  right,  instead  of  hurrying  on 
their  accession  to  political  rights  which  have  certainly  not  given 
them  political  authority. 

Let  no  indignant  suffragist  suppose  that  we  are  so  dull  as  to 
suggest,  what  any  man  of  sense  knows  to  be  strictly  false,  that 
English  women  occupy  anything  like  the  position  of  ignorant  and 
hardly  civiHzed  negroes.  The  suggestion  that  English  women  are 
slaves,  patent  as  is  its  absurdity,  comes,  if  at  all,  from  the  more 
heated  and  less  wise  advocates  of  woman  suffrage.  All  that  is 
here  contended  for  is  that  page  after  page  of  history  exemplifies 
the  futility  of  giving  to  any  class,  whether  of  men  or  of  women, 
political  rights  in  excess  of  genuine  political  power. 

Full  participation,  further,  not  in  civil  rights,  but  in  sover- 
eignty, depends  on  capacity  to  perform  all  the  duties  of  citizen- 
ship and  the  defence  of  his  country  is  at  certain  periods  the 
main,  as  at  all  times  it  ought  to  be  the  essential  duty  of  a  British 
citizen.  But  this  duty  women  as  a  class  have  not  the  capacity  to 
perform.  No  one  dreams  of  the  formation  of  an  army  of  Ama- 
zons and  were   such   a  thing  a  possibility,   it  would  be   a   step 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE  289 

back  towards  barbarism.  Nor  *is  it  only  in  the  defence  of  the 
country  against  foreign  enemies  that  women  are,  by  nature, 
incapable  of  taking  part;  the  same  is  the  case  with  the  mainten- 
ance of  law  and  order  at  home.  Law  is  a  command;  its  sanc- 
tions are  ineffective  without  force  to  apply  them ;  and  women  are 
unable  to  share  in  the  forcible  maintenance  of  the  laws,  which, 
if  they  had  the  vote,  they  would  share  in  making.  It  is  no  argu- 
ment, in  this  connexion,  to  say  that  many  men  are  incapable, 
from  age  or  weakness,  of  defending  the  state,  but  enjoy  the  fran- 
chise all  the  same.  The  aged  have  taken,  or  been  able  to  take, 
their  share  of  public  duties ;  the  weaklings  are  exceptions.  Of 
women  the  reverse  is  true.  No  one  dreams  that  they  ought  to 
be  constables,  officers  of  police,  governors  of  gaols,  or  coast- 
guards. No  woman  is  bound,  as  is  a  man,  to  attend  the  Justices 
in  suppressing  a  riot  upon  pain  of  fine  and  imprisonment.  All 
this  is  no  absolute  ground  from  excluding  women  from  a  share 
in  sovereign  power,  but  it  does  afford  a  ground  which  is  not 
palpably  unjust   for  their  exclusion   from  political   authority. 

Distinctions  of  rights  founded  upon  sex  have  often  given  rise 
to  injustice,  but  they  have  this  in  their  favour;  they  rest  upon  a 
difference  not  created  by  social  conventions  or  by  human  prej- 
udice and  selfishness,  or  by  accidental  circumstances,  (such  as 
riches  and  poverty  which  split  society  into  classes,  but  upon  the 
nature  of  things.  This  difference  is  as  far-reaching  as  it  is  nat- 
ural and  immutable.  It  is  one  which,  just  because  it  is  per- 
manent and  unchangeable,  every  honest  thinker  must  take  into 
account.  That  men  are  men  and  women  are  women  is  an  ob- 
vious truism ;  yet  it  contains  an  undeniable  truth  which,  like  some 
other  unwelcome  facts,  rhetoric,  even  when,  as  with  Mill,  it 
masquerades  as  strict  reasoning,  cannot  conceal.  This  is  a  mat- 
ter worth  insisting  upon,  for  there  is  nothing  which  hinders  the 
calm  discussion  of  a  political  problem  requiring  for  its  solution 
something  like  judicial  serenity,  so  much  as  the  difficulty,  in- 
separable from  all  discussions  involving  reference  to  sex,  of 
putting  plain  facts  into  plain  language.  The  comparative  weak- 
ness of  women  inevitably  means  loss  of  power.  Nor  can  it  be 
forgotten,  that  not  only  are  women  physically,  and  probably  men- 
tally weaker  than  men-  but  they  are  inevitably,  as  a  class,  bur- 
dened with  duties  of  the  utmost  national  importance,  and  of  an 


290  SELECTED  ARTICLES 

absorbing  and  exhausting  nature,  from  which  men  are  free.  In 
any  case,  the  close  connexion  between  government  and  force  tells 
against  the  claim  made  on  behalf  of  women  to  the  possession  of 
as  much  political  authority  as  is  conceded  to  men. 


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